Starting this thread with a bit of injury news. Erik Durm is out of Saturday's match at Leverkusen after suffering some sort of strain while warming up. Marcel Schmelzer is back in training, but will not be ready for Saturday's match. All signs point to Kevin Grosskreutz drawing the left back assignment at Leverkusen. In other injury news pertaining to this match, Roman Weidenfeller is fit again and should be in goal against Leverkusen.
While, I always want BVB to win. I really don't want Wolfsburg in the CL next year. An enormous Wolfsburg spending spree is not what we need.
Easy win. Klopp>Sascha Lewandowski With no midweek matches, Dortmund's players are well-rested and when that happens clearly BVB's players>Leverkusen's players no matter where the game is played. There's nothing more to say
Spending in and of itself isn't bad. We've beaten squads like Manchester City with a billion dollars poured into it. Spending smart would make it difficult. Wolfsburg have proven they can spend, but spend smartly? We'll see.
VW was one of the better teams this year. They haven't properly utilized KDB but they do have good experienced players in Olic and Guztavo and some of their younger players have quite a bit of potential. That hammering against Bayern in the return fixture was undeserved. And we need more competition in the BuLi, teams to at least take down Bayern. If it ain't coming from VfL and Schalke, who is it coming from? Leverkusen and Gladbach?
Spending dumb is easy; the judging ends there. But spending smart relies on getting the coach to get the best out of the acquired players.
Agreed. I just don't want to take the risk they get it right. I don't want more competition for the number 2 spot in the BL.
We come from different perspectives. I care more about BVB retaining our foothold as the number 2 team behind FCB than I do seeing someone winning the BL at FCBs expense.
Since Allofs became their sporting director in the end of 2012, they've made smarter signings than the previous few years (I feel). Timm Klose might be a flop surprisingly but, aside from him, they've bought well IMO. Luiz Gustavo, De Bruyne and Malanda are good signings. Perisic is doing okay. Caligiuri is a useful hard-working winger. And they have one of the best youth academies in Germany(they've been spending a lot of money on it). Knoche and Arnold are good young players. It looks like Wolfsburg are on the right path.
I want other teams to not fold so easily to Bayern [Frankfurt just gave up in the return fixture! Hamburg might as well have not played]. I am not concerned how they play against BVB because they usually sit back and counter. If they attack us we'll win more frequently. Remember we don't have players who can break down organized in-form defences.
Goal by Kirch of all people. Corner defence is not something that's much of a factor in this game I guess.