Official Borussia Dortmund thread

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Bürki
Sokratis Toprak Bartra
Passlack Weigl Guerreiro
Pulisic Dembele Mor
Isak

FFS

this would barely work on FIFA let alone IRL

Arsenal fan talking about top talents. LMAO !

RG is one of the best LB's in the world. I will at this point take him @ Bayern & move Alaba to CM, he is that damn good.

Weigl is a top DM who can easily play @ Bayern & better than the Xhaka-Coquelin types.

Dembele is a top talent. Sokratis, Auba & Reus are established elite names.

Pulisic I rate him highly, a shade below Dembele level but he can be a  very good player. Mor, I have not seen enough, just that he is fast & pacy so I would reserve my judgment!

Dortmund are already better than every EPL team IMO - Comfortably beat Madrid to top their CHL group! Arsenal or United would have been humiliated as usual & would be knocked out in their Round of 16!

footyfan01 wrote:Arsenal fan talking about top talents. LMAO !

Who is that aimed at? Urban, or me?

In either case, both Urban and I have been following/watching/supporting BVB for many years now (to the best of my knowledge wrt urban).

Besides, why/how does supporting one club from one league imply that there the person has insufficient knowledge to talk about another club/player/league?

Being a fan of one club does not preclude having a knowledge about what's happening elsewhere. Gone are the decades when only fans watching games every week in their team's stadium had insights into their players. Keep up mate.

Also, being a fan of club does not mean that one should have unreasonably inflated expectations and evaluations of everything to do with that club and its squad. There are the posters on this forum, and elsewhere, who do a fairly good job at doing so, but not everyone can be measured with that yardstick.

It's alright if someone is critical of their club/squad. The sky ain't falling down.

Pretty sure he was aiming Urban.

footyfan01 wrote:Arsenal fan talking about top talents. LMAO !

RG is one of the best LB's in the world. I will at this point take him @ Bayern & move Alaba to CM, he is that damn good.

Weigl is a top DM who can easily play @ Bayern & better than the Xhaka-Coquelin types.

Dembele is a top talent. Sokratis, Auba & Reus are established elite names.

Pulisic I rate him highly, a shade below Dembele level but he can be a  very good player. Mor, I have not seen enough, just that he is fast & pacy so I would reserve my judgment!

Dortmund are already better than every EPL team IMO - Comfortably beat Madrid to top their CHL group! Arsenal or United would have been humiliated as usual & would be knocked out in their Round of 16!

If Guerrero is one of the best LB's in the world then why was he displaced by a bum like Schmelzer. Anyway he has proved himself far more useful as a CM than LB but still no where near one of the best in the world.

Weigl is not a top DM, he is one of the reasons why Dortmund suck at defending, he literally offers no protection in midfield. Can pass well though, if you remember Denilson at Arsenal, they are similar players.

Dembele is a top talent no doubt but Pulisic will spend most of his career playing for Everton in the Premier League which is not bad of course, but nothing to get overly excited for.

Emre Mor is just retarded, there's no saving for him. Very talented and a great dribbler, but the work ethic and brains of Ben Arfa. Not a bad comparison at all when I think about it, I think that's as far Emre Mor can go.

Don't know anything about this Alexander Isak kid but if Real Madrid wanted him then he must be legit, we'll see how long it'll take until he is ready to replace Aubameyang.

urbaNRoots wrote:

Weigl is not a top DM, he is one of the reasons why Dortmund suck at defending, he literally offers no protection in midfield. Can pass well though, if you remember Denilson at Arsenal, they are similar players.

this is a new perspective. Everyone and their dog is convinced Weigl is the next big thing and according them the kid's got everything in his locker. So, I am intrigued by this comment m8. Hope some other Buli watchers can shed light.

@urbanroots what is a top dm?

It very much depends on his skill set and what you want him to do. BVBs tactics are ares much of an issue. He isn't a tackler like Makelele or Gattusso but he is vital to Tuchels circulation.

The problem BvB is the mf set up. Gotze and castro have played in front of him in a lot of games. One is a runner and the other isn't a central mf in positioning or characteristics. As opposed to last season when Gundogan was there, Weigl is having to carry the ball forward a lot of the times because the cms are so far ahead or andre incapable of carrying the ball themselves when under pressure.

The full backs in bvb from what I remember have their passing lanes cut off so bvb ended up looking sterile in possession and are usually one counter away from being exposed. Weigl is having a similar issue to what Busquets had when he has to cover too much ground. BvB are in desperate need of a gundogan replacement that is press resisitant.

Yeah I agree that Weigl has been basically crippled since Gündogan's departure. At the beginning of the season Guerrero did a great job in taking the pressure off Weigl as far as carrying the ball from midfield to attack goes. Then Guerrero got injured and was replaced by Castro who is very much a different kind of player.

That put Weigl in immense pressure because he is required to play two roles and he has lot a bit of confidence because of failing to do that which is understandable at his age.

I think Tielemans can be a solution to make Weigl great again, if Tuchel remains consistent on this style of play. Tielemans has the defensive drive from his time as a defensive midfielder and the immense passing skills and close control that Gündogan used to offer.

urbaNRoots wrote:

footyfan01 wrote:Arsenal fan talking about top talents. LMAO !

RG is one of the best LB's in the world. I will at this point take him @ Bayern & move Alaba to CM, he is that damn good.

Weigl is a top DM who can easily play @ Bayern & better than the Xhaka-Coquelin types.

Dembele is a top talent. Sokratis, Auba & Reus are established elite names.

Pulisic I rate him highly, a shade below Dembele level but he can be a  very good player. Mor, I have not seen enough, just that he is fast & pacy so I would reserve my judgment!

Dortmund are already better than every EPL team IMO - Comfortably beat Madrid to top their CHL group! Arsenal or United would have been humiliated as usual & would be knocked out in their Round of 16!

If Guerrero is one of the best LB's in the world then why was he displaced by a bum like Schmelzer. Anyway he has proved himself far more useful as a CM than LB but still no where near one of the best in the world.

Weigl is not a top DM, he is one of the reasons why Dortmund suck at defending, he literally offers no protection in midfield. Can pass well though, if you remember Denilson at Arsenal, they are similar players.

Dembele is a top talent no doubt but Pulisic will spend most of his career playing for Everton in the Premier League which is not bad of course, but nothing to get overly excited for.

Emre Mor is just retarded, there's no saving for him. Very talented and a great dribbler, but the work ethic and brains of Ben Arfa. Not a bad comparison at all when I think about it, I think that's as far Emre Mor can go.

Don't know anything about this Alexander Isak kid but if Real Madrid wanted him then he must be legit, we'll see how long it'll take until he is ready to replace Aubameyang.

Pulisic is way better than scrubs like Iwobi, Chamberlain, etc who play for Arsenal. Mor is young n okay, he is an Iwobi level talent but good enough to be 4th or 5th choice. Pulisic

And if Dortmund sell Auba they will get 100M, so they can buy some1 great. Weigl is like 10 times better than Coquelin or Xhaka, would start @ Bayern, really good DM, a complete DM who can tackle & offer defensive protection. The defensive problems of Dortmund have nothing to do with Weigl but an unstable defense because Barta is just flat out bad, Weidenfeller it too old & Burki (GK) too mistake prone or injured etc etc. They don't have a stable defense. Plus they lack a good CM which is crippling possession & is putting enormous pressure of Weigl who is doing fine defensively.

RG just came back from injury & this is his 1st season in Dortmund. Schmelzer is a Dortmund youth product & captain/2nd captain of sorts, so RG will be eased into the role this year or next.

Dortmund are getting Dahoud to partner Weigl & Toprak to partner Sokratis - 2 good players from 2 BL teams in Gladback & Leverkusen which will solve a lot of their problems!

They're miles away from first..they have a very nice team, I won't say Bundesliga is weak but they should be doing better than they have been..the likes of Auba will leave this summer who is a massive part of their goals, Dembele will probably leave for a top club in a season, Reus seems like he will stay there though but seems to get injured often. Tuchel supposedly a top manager. Can't use the excuse like we can that the competition is insane.

what's going on? I haven't watched them outside of the CL so genuinely curious

Tuchel is not a top manager, he has done nothing to be named as such

What's happened is that they sold three top players and replaced them with young/average players. See my first post in this thread to see how they weakened their squad in the summer.

but you look at their team and it still looks a cut above the rest besides Bayern (on paper) Dembele seems quality too, are they just defensively quite poor now? without looking at the stats I've noticed they've given up leads the last few weeks and also that match in the CL I watched that broke the scoring records they looked absolutely clueless in defense

offensively they look like destroyers

I don't know they are very average in defence and midfield. Just having a great front three doesn't mean that you are guaranteed a second place, even in the Bundesliga. Can't rely on 3-4 players all the time.

Firenze wrote:They're miles away from first..they have a very nice team, I won't say Bundesliga is weak but they should be doing better than they have been..the likes of Auba will leave this summer who is a massive part of their goals, Dembele will probably leave for a top club in a season, Reus seems like he will stay there though but seems to get injured often. Tuchel supposedly a top manager. Can't use the excuse like we can that the competition is insane.

what's going on? I haven't watched them outside of the CL so genuinely curious

Why won't you say Bundesliga is weak? It is. It's the league where the dominant team's keeper plays keepy ups with the sub because he is bored and hasn't faced a shot. Its the league where players move back and forth from rivals and having a laugh, its the league where teams bend over for Bayern before CL games in hopes they perform better as Germany's representative.

So please, call them a weak league, because thats what it is, a man in a boy's game.

^
Inb4 a tldr drivel by buli people such as footyfan discrediting all those above points and mocking EPL n its fans.

I look forward to them mocking EPL and its fans to be honest.

We struggled really bad vs a Relegation team in Bremen & squeezed out a 2-1 win, RB were losing & squeezed out a win & Dortmund conceded a late goal to draw.

They have a top team with 2 glaring hole in CB & CM - Rode & Bartra are just poor. Ginter is a young promising CB, Bender is a decent DM turned CB - They need a top CB to partner Sokratis. Sokratis is an absolute WC CB & is being wasted with amateur players.

CM is a another problem. They are playing Guerrero at CM & Schmelzer at LB which is crazy. A top CM will allow RG at LB where he belongs.

They need get 2 Top players & they will be huge CHL contenders next season - Not Bartra or Rode types players. But Van Dijk & Radja(Roma) level players who are possibly too expensive for Dortmund!

established players aren't gonna be flocking to go to dortmund unless they're in the bundesliga already IMO but Auba money should allow them to get some decent players in this summer to fill those positions, they should get their inner bayern on and steal some of Lepzig's players

I'm skeptical of them being huge CL contenders in the next few seasons but I mean they did have very competitive games with Madrid in the CL this season

Realistically they should be behind Real, Barca, Bayern and Juve next season but above all english and the other german and italian teams. Probably on par with the other spanish teams though Atletico is in big doubt as they could finally lose Simeone and Griezmann on top of that plus aging key players like Godin and Sevilla have yet to show they can do anything in the CL. So I'd say they are 2nd row behind the big 3 + Juve.

They might not get established PL players but that shouldn't matter too much. There's no reason why they can't get players from good italian or spanish clubs. PL is only a problem because all the good players earn too much money. Also you don't really have to buy so called "established" players. If your scouts are no scrubs you can just buy good players.

Dortmund should absolutely not be favored over the likes of this current Chelsea team IMO.

Firenze wrote:Dortmund should absolutely not be favored over the likes of this current Chelsea team IMO.

Conte is a CL scrub until proven otherwise.

They won their group ahead of Real, so they're doing fine tbh.
Let's see how Serie A beasts Napoli with their reincarnated Sacchi coach fare.

In the league, after selling Hummels, Gündogan AND Mkhitaryan (Mkhitaryan is practically the best player in EPL nowadays...) you have to assume their board would have assumed this season to be one of transition. CL qualification would constitute a decent season for them.

Agree with @footyfan01 that their defense and central midfield are problem areas where they need some more quality. Let's also not forget they had to play with Weidenfeller in goal for a good part of the season.

They need a new (and better) starting GK, CB, RB, CM. Also a backup CF whether Aubameyang stays or not, a starting CF too if he leaves.

Injuries, though.