in 75 min: 80% pass completion, 52 touches, 3 aerials won, 1 key pass ( to Reus) and 1 shot. Was he really a waste?
Nope, everyone was a waste other than Kampl today. Even our CB's with their 90%-plus duels. Everything we did was completely ineffective so statistics only tell part of the story. It should have been 4-5 points from 4th place today, but sadly it's not the case.
He wasn't that bad. Had Reus finished his chance in the 55th, people would still be hating on HM. Auba was invisible and Kagawa struggled. No mention of them though, just same ol hating on HM. Very strange
Mkhitaryan was at the same level as every other BVB attacker barring Kampl in this game; not very good. Its nothing praiseworthy, that's for sure. Everyone else gets a bit more slack because they've had positive impacts at one point or another this season at much more frequent rates than Mkhitaryan. It's not that strange.
If we're playing long balls shouldn't we be looking at the CBs and even FBs to judge how our performance was? Hummels' distribution was awful, regularly misjudging PEA's runs. Even against Dresden he wasn't that good, remember that horrendous mistake? Considering he's one of our tallest players on the pitch, he was useless during the few set pieces when Reus and Schmelzer were able to cross somewhat accurately. HSV won damn near every single first touch on the set pieces. Players are as good as they can be with form taking into account. Klopp had 90 min to switch up tactics, players, formation - either use our talented midfield or lose 2 of them in exchange for strikers and continue with long balls. He did neither. Mistakes he made were elementary at best.
That was a toothless display, one would think we're back to the future watching that. Nuri out along with Reus/PEA having off days = dropped points. This team is far more reliant on star individuals coming up with the goods than I remember it to be a few years ago when there was a sound system and game plan put in place that got the best out of everyone as a collective. In the end, there are still some positives to take out of this game believe it or not (clean sheet against a team we let in tons of goals to in recent seasons, Kampl's decent cameo, gap from European places not growing much) even if the end result wasn't the desired one. Don't get why Klopp seemed so satisfied with it though, have the last few years suddenly been erased from his memory or what? Big week coming up with the Koln, Juve, and Hannover games, all must wins if we are going to save our season in the BuLi and CL. Hopefully we'll have Nuri and Sokratis back and ready to go for these matches.
The only part of Reus I don't like is his set piece taking.. Maybe it's just me but we really waste set pieces, it doesn't matter if it's Reus, Schmelzer or Aubameyang taking, barely anything good ever comes of Dortmund taking a set piece
The fact that top professionals who don't go 8 hours without kicking a football are incapable of launching it into a crowd of 16 standing 30 yards away is pathetic.
Never a fan of Reus when it comes to set-piece deliveries. I would prefer Sahin/Schmelzer doing that. Even Auba would be better than Reus - but then, he will have to take the kick, run all the way towards the goal and then head the ball into the goal.
I guess Klopp really wants in-swinging deliveries from both corners, going so far as to have Kagawa take them with his (weaker) left foot when Şahin and Schmelzer were available. Though Kagawa said the accuracy of his delivery was better with the left...
That's a bit of a stretch to even consider it a good look; it wasn't a great angle or distance to start with and they had a well positioned keeper; Reus had a very slim chance of converting. On the other hand, if we were to look at Ciro's chance now that's a whole different story...probably the biggest opportunity missed, where he opted to cross(which went over everyone that was in the dangerous area)than shooting it himself, considering his great position against the keeper and goal.
Reus is very good on the angle, he should have scored that imo, and he has scored similar goals. I can't recall the Ciro chance, my internet actually conked out, for the last fifteen mins so perhaps I missed it?
Still disagree, again, the opportunity setup wasn't great to start with. Ya, it happened in the 80's. If you want to spare a few minutes to check it out, here it is(bottom video): http://livefootballvideo.com/fullmatch/germany/bundesliga/hamburger-sv-vs-borussia-dortmund-2
hahaha fair enough. We will have to disagree with the Reus opp. I think it was a fine ball from HM (certainly glad he didn't shoot) and I was expecting Reus to score. No matter. thx for the link. Will check it out now