Is Thomas Tuchel's Tinkerman Approach a Hindrance to Borussia Dortmund?

A deserved, but perhaps a bit unlucky, 2-1 defeat at the hands of Eintracht Frankfurt on Matchday 12 of the 2016/17 Bundesliga season seems to have heralded the start of open season on Borussia Dortmund head coach Thomas Tuchel.

Internet message boards and social media are one thing, but even respected voices close to the club from the Ruhr valley have set their sights on the 43-year-old.

Thomas Hennecke theorised in Monday's edition of German sport magazine Kicker that the coach could lose the dressing room after Tuchel laid into his team in his post-match press conference. With that, the writer continued, he deflected criticism from himself.

Matthias Dersch of local paper Ruhr Nachrichten (link in German) took the same line, demanding Tuchel start with his own shortcomings instead of blasting his players.

Even the club's official website described the coach's analysis of the game as "brief, yet brutal." It quoted him saying: "Our performance as a whole was deficient. It began during training this week, and today it was a performance from the first to the last minute that merited no points."

Harsh words, of course, but no one who watched the game will find much with which to disagree. The Black and Yellows looked lethargic, lackadaisical and made inexcusable errors leading to a deserved defeat, despite having the chances to come away with at least one point and being denied a blatant penalty.

Dortmund-based Dersch's immediate reaction to the Frankfurt match was to question Tuchel's personnel decisions, via Twitter (link in German), focusing mostly on the heavy rotation between games.

Freddie Rockenhaus of Suddeutsche Zeitung (link in German), perhaps the writer closest to the club's decision-makers, adopted a similar stance, arguing the changes made compared to the 8-4 win over Legia Warsaw in the Champions League were to blame for the defeat against the Hessians.

One could point out that suggestion was aided by the fact Ousmane Dembele was far and away the team's best player coming off the bench against Frankfurt after impressing against Legia in midweek. On the other hand, who's to say that the Frenchman did not benefit from tiring opponents towards the end of the game?

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

While it is true that Tuchel made an enormous amount of changes from Saturday to Wednesday to Saturday, it has to be noted that the team that won a famous victory over Bayern Munich on Matchday 11 was only changed in two spots compared to the one which took on Frankfurt and failed miserably.

One of those changes was forced by injury, as Roman Weidenfeller has taken over from Roman Burki in goal after the Swiss broke his hand against the Bavarians. So essentially, there was one change from the Bayern match.

Using the wacky night against Legia as a measuring stick for anything seems an ill-advised strategy, seeing as the Poles were hardly a competitive opponent.

Being part of a team that conceded four goals against opposition that, with all due respect, has no business competing in European football's premier competition hardly made for a great application to start the much tougher Bundesliga match, one would think.

Even if we take a broader look at the entire season so far, it seems far too easy to focus on Tuchel's personnel decisions as the biggest factor in the team's up-and-down performances.

Per numbers compiled by Dortmund fan blog Schwatzgelb (link in German), there has been an average of 4.15 changes made to the team's starting XI per match across all competitions. Changing more than a third of the team for each game may seem a lot, but it is far from outrageous.

The Black and Yellows have played 1,830 minutes of football this season and, per Transfermarkt.com, 11 players have played more than half of those minutes. Another six players have spent at least one-third of all possible minutes on the pitch.

That leaves nine of the 25 players used this season as fringe players who have only seen the field sparingly, playing less than one-third of all possible minutes. That number, however, includes back-up goalkeeper Weidenfeller and players who returned from long-term injuries, such as Marco Reus or Erik Durm.

TF-Images/Getty Images

In comparison, Bayern Munich also have 11 players who have played more than half of all possible minutes, four who have played at least one-third and eight who can be considered fringe players by the definition used above, per Transfermarkt.

Now, both Dortmund and Bayern have had their struggles this season and generally not hit their best form so far, but nobody would criticise Carlo Ancelotti for being too jumpy in his personnel decisions or too flexible in his tactical decisions.

Both the veteran Italian and Tuchel have suffered from some of the same problems, too. Bayern and Dortmund have been hit by injuries this season, and both have players on their teams who tend to take their time getting back to their best when coming back from a lay-off.

For the Black and Yellows, the injury crisis forced Tuchel into making an inordinate amount of changes throughout October and November, with naturally mixed results.

He had to rely on a young team that has yet to become a cohesive unit in many games and, while that cannot serve as an excuse for a number of poor performances, it has to be taken into account when complaining about his tinkering with the squad.

Not only does Tuchel have to be careful when reintegrating players after injuries for fear of reaggravation of those maladies, he also has to take prophylactic measures with a number of injury-prone players who are vital to Dortmund's success this season.

One of the keys to Tuchel's impressive maiden campaign at the Westfalenstadion was that he managed to keep the squad healthy for the most part. The failures in the Europa League against Liverpool and in the DFB-Pokal final shootout loss against Bayern had a lot to do with the fact that Dortmund missed Ilkay Gundogan in both instances and had to replace Mats Hummels after 78 minutes against his new club in the cup.

Quite simply, rotation is a necessity for a team that is led by players such as Reus, Mario Gotze or team captain Marcel Schmelzer, all of whom have lengthy injury histories.

Much more than personnel decisions Tuchel has made during the campaign, decisions that were made in the summer are at the root of the problem for Dortmund. As this writer argued in an earlier piece, the club's decision not to bring in a creative central midfielder to replace Gundogan has showed up time and again.

Against Frankfurt, there was no link between the team's defensive and offensive structures—precisely what the Germany international provided on a world-class level under Tuchel last season. The Black and Yellows struggle against aggressive opponents who attack them high up the pitch with man-oriented pressing.

Teams have identified Julian Weigl as Dortmund's most important player and, in many games, successfully isolated the 21-year-old from his team-mates. This has left the principal buildup duties to defenders who are not on Hummels' level as ball-players or midfielders such as Gotze or Gonzalo Castro, whose biggest strengths lie further up the pitch.

TF-Images/Getty Images

The only player in the squad who can take on Gundogan's responsibilities seems to be summer signing Raphael Guerreiro, who has missed eight games with various injuries. The fact that Dortmund have to rely on a 22-year-old they signed as a left-back from lowly FC Lorient in Ligue 1 as their saviour in midfield is telling.

That is where criticism ought to be directed first and foremost, not at Tuchel's decisions on a weekly basis.

Of course, the head coach is not free from blame, far from it. For example, his coming back to Sebastian Rode as a holding midfielder has failed spectacularly in nearly every game. Putting Adrian Ramos on the wings has not yielded positive results either.

And, yes, he could have found a more elegant solution after the Frankfurt match, where justified criticism towards his team made it look as though he tried to avoid the blame when a young team would perhaps be better served if the head coach shielded them from it.

But pointing to Tuchel's tinkerman-like approach to team selections as the major reason for a season that has turned into a near-constant stop and go seems lazy.

The 43-year-old is an easy target, seeing as he is more respected than beloved by the club's fans and not overly charismatic in his interactions with the media.

Tuchel's only answer has to come on the field, starting with the next Bundesliga game against Borussia Monchengladbach.

The best way to improve a team is still on the training ground, and this will be the first time since the start of the campaign that Dortmund's head coach will have an entire week to prepare for a match.

If he wants to change the narrative, Tuchel will have to make good use of the opportunity.

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.