I focus on Dortmund. Sadly Favre is not the man. We are in a fortunate position where a much better coach in Poch is available. Madrid are not sacking Zidane Barca just hired Koeman Atletico are not sacking Simeone Bayern are not sacking Flick Liverpool are not sacking Klopp City are not sacking Guardiola I got bored, but no top team is changing their manager any time soon. We need to go all out to get Poch and Nagelsmann. I would lose Sancho and not replace him than keep Favre. The guy is a joke. When asked about Sancho, he said he needs to improve more defensively and run for more than 10 mintues,.Hopefully he leaves and takes Witsel, Delaney and Wolf with him.
I don't think you posted the whole clip, or I stopped watching it. Saying he could improve his chest, control and heading are good things. Even saying he can still improve when he has to defend. Saying he can run for more than just 10 minutes is insulting and unless he was joking, shows they don't have a great relationship. I missed that the first time. EDIT I also did not hear the initial question the first time. The question was about what Sancho brings to the team. He decided to start criticising him. I assumed it was a question like "Sancho is an incredible player, is there anything else he can improve on." Not "Sancho is staying how does this help Dortmund" and then he starts criticising his running. Just please sack him.
It was at the end of the clip. He didn't say that Sancho literally doesn't run for more than 10 minutes. Although his phrasing is kind of idiosyncratic, what Favre said was that Jadon needs a fuller commitment to defending ("total verteidigen") and avoid the occasional spells where his work rate drops off after a good 10 minutes stretch - and "everyone must do this, otherwise we have a problem." I doubt this is a controversial point.
OK, it's not as bad as he needs to run for 10 minutes, but it was still uncalled for especially when you hear the question. We have the best squad since the early 2000s, though the first 11 is not as good as it was in 2013 and arguably 2016, but I know the manager is going to ruin it.
There are reports that Reus is pain-free and will try to join part of team training this week. Very surprising given recent murmurs that surgery was on the table.
Reus returning would be a huge plus, but he needs to relax and not push himself. Also Favre needs to show common sense and not break him. There's no need for Reus to play every game. No need for him to play cup games NOT against a top 6 Bundesliga team. No need for him to play matches against CL whipping boys, or if we have qualified. No need for him to play a Bundesliga match before or after a CL match. If Sancho stays then we have Hazard, Reyna and at a push Brandt to fill in for him on the left.
Good news. We got to see the quick passing, high intensity, pressing football we have been calling for. The bad news is that it was Feynoord Not much positives from the two games except Reyna looks very good and Brandt is taking responsibility and trying to take control. Raschl was disappointing and hid when things got tough. Witsel was his usual self in midfield offering nothing. Raphael went into midfield second half. This could be a difficult season.
Haven’t seen the first match, but the second was bad. Can and Witsel lost many balls and build up play was too slow. Neither Brandt nor Guerreiro did contribute with anything creative, Haaland was invisible and his first touch bad. One can question the line up, better team was set against Duisburg. Maybe LF was afraid to lose both?
Can was trying to do too much, because Witsel and Raschl weren't doing their jobs. This is what happens when we play good teams. Witsel etc don't show for the ball or make space to receive the pass. When they do get it they spend too long on the ball and the attacking players are no longer free. Brandt gave the ball away too much, but I think he did the right thing coming deep to speed up play, make options for the defence. It's the sort of responsibility and leadership he is going to have to show. However, this match shows precisely why I want a midfield of Can/Brant/Dahoud. In the first match Akanji was making mistakes again too. Also annoying to see we sat deeper when Feynoord or even in the first match than the opposition.
You hear ambitious statements from the club hierarchy, most recently Kehl, saying how Sancho is staying and the club wants to win titles. Which is great, except for the fact that the management fails to be ambitious when it comes to hiring a coach. I don't get it.
I agree. Whoever still thinks we can win trophies with Favre might as well expect a eunuch to impregnate a woman.
Favre is complaining about the lack of depth in this squad. Unbelievable. Though we could sell Delaney/Wolf/Witsel and sign a CB, for greater balanace, we have an incredibly strong squad. If he is left in charge and we get a tough CL group, then he will ruin our season before Christmas. I hope he walks.
I was surprised about these comments as well because we just had a test day with 2 games and almost 2 squads and a couple of missing players. But these squads did have several players of the youth and second teams. But in comparison to even some of the top teams, our depth seems really good. If Favre expects two complete squads of equally high quality, then that is just not a sensible demand. Further, why does he want two squads when he's never shown the willingness to implement rotation? But I do agree with one of his other comments that Ansgar Knauff might be another very promising talent. Not quite there yet and he could be just another Bittencourt who never makes the next step with us but there is potential for a very exciting player.
Generally regarding Favre and maybe I'm repeating myself, everything after the 3:3 Paderborn game smells like he's only in job preservation mode. He found a formation, possibly with the team pushing for it as well, that saved his job and he mainly stuck to it for the rest of the season. Few risks and experiments and barely any rotation to balance the workload of the players. It was only about achieving enough to keep the job and not about one peak result (challenging at least one of the title opportunities). Now it seems he's training the team to go back to the 4 man backline and I'm not sure what's best for the team. We lost a crucial piece that made last season's formation work but I don't see why the 4 man backline should suddenly work so much better with Meunier and Bellingham as the only notable additions in defense and midfield. I prefer an optimistic approach for a new season but I fear that if it doesn't work, the season might be already over before it's recognized that this idea failed again.
Favre too often plays not to lose, top coaches always play to win. In order to win the BL this season I think the team needs to be winning 28 games. This is unlikely under Favre as far too many points will be dropped due to his cautious attitude, as well as player burnout later in the season due to his refusal to rotate. Btw I hope Raschl and Knauff get some playing time this season. Would be nice to see some more local/German talents coming through and making it.
Yeh its quite an absurd comment. I mean compare our depth to Liverpool. We can easily put out a second team looking like this ---Hitz------ Morey--LP--Akanji--Schulz Hazard--Bellingham--Witsel--Delaney--Reyna ----------------Reinier---- Now compare that with Liverpool ----Adnan Hoever--Gomez--Van den Berg--Tsimikas ---------Ox---Milner--Keita ---Shaqiri-------Origi----------Minamino If anything the Dortmund team is better and more experiened. It's a joke for him to be complaining about depth. As you said as well, Favre never rotates anyway. and just burns out players. It is a man desperate for excuses. I also don't like we have not announced we are going for the title. Apparently it made the team to anxious last season. That's a weak mentality coming from the board.
Wtf? Why should the players be scared of ambitious targets? What sort of losers mentality is that? I expect the real reason is that the management don't wanna be made to look stupid again, cos they probably realise with Favre as coach that is the most likely outcome if they publicly set ambitious targets.
Yep it's embarrassing. I will always love Dortmund, but you have to question why an ambitious player would want to stay? Just look at the improvement from Pulisic, when he had Lampard coaching him.
Re the 4 man back line, Meunier should be fine slotting in at RB however RG is not as well suited to the role, and is better as a wing back.
It depends on your style of football. Raphael is weak defensively, but he has been very successful playing in a back 4, with what up to now has been a defensive Portugal team. He has won two trophies with them. Trent Arnold, is far better attacking, but he is having incredible seasons at left back. It all depends on the system. We don't play a formation or a style of football to suit our players. Our defence is exposed for, because we don't press well upfront, but instead drop to a very low block and give up possession. We have a technical attacking team. We are not supposed to be sitting back. Not to mention we don't have a proper 6. Witsel is awful defensively. This season we will go out of the CL in the group stages or last 16 depending on the group, fight it out for top 4 and lose to an average team in the cup. Basically the same old. It's very depressing.
The 4 man back-line creates a similar dilemma like Real Madrid has with Marcelo who is only a LB by name. However, Real has Ramos to cover up all the gaps left by Marcelo. Our left CB is Hummels and it's a tall ask for him to do the same for us as. Unfortunately, unless Guerreiro gets pushed up to the midfield and Schulz is inserted at LB, our best team is with RG in there so we'll have to live with it.
Real Madrid won 4 CL titles with Marcelo at left back, who was one of the greats. Hummels is a fantastic defender and can cover. However, football is a team game. We have a mobile no 6, either Bellingham or Can cover the left hand side more. We then play another mobile midfielder preferably Dahoud, who has the energy and the speed to cover the left hand side. Bayern showed how you win big trophies. You play to your strengths. You go out to win games.
Marcelo is a great "offensive" left back that has greatly contributed to their CL titles. His skills going forward have been of immense impact to Real Madrid and thus he had to be an unquestioned first option in the starting eleven. However, this worked for Real because of Ramos and Casemiro who are workhorses and were covering for him so that his major defensive gaps and deficiencies have not hurt them. Hummels was never an athletic or pacy CB but relied on exceptional IQ and positioning to get the job done so now at 31 there is no way that he can be asked to cover the gaps like Ramos has been able to do. So you will have to devote a midfielder (prefereably Can) to be Casemiro and have the main focus be asisting Hummels on the left. This will work if you have another ball-playing central midfielder to play alongside him. Dahoud is definitely a good option and I also would like them to integrate Bellingham and Raschl (if not loaned out) into that position this season and give them both a good run. Now, RG is a better defensive LB than Marcelo so this scenario may not be as pronounced especially since he has been playing that for Portugal as well.