Borussia Dortmund's 5 Biggest Weaknesses to Exploit in the 2014/15 Season

Borussia Dortmund return to Bundesliga action this weekend, as they welcome Freiburg to the Westfalenstadion in the hope of overcoming a rather bumpy start to the season. 

Jurgen Klopp's side have picked up just three points from their first two league matches, having lost emphatically to a determined Bayer Leverkusen in the opening weekend and so will be hopeful of a quick, tidy win on Saturday. 

Yet as hopeful as the black and yellows are, there are holes in their title ambitions that can be exploited by any well prepared opponent. Dortmund have their weaknesses and they aren't all too discreet, either. 

Here are the five biggest weaknesses that will be keeping Klopp awake at night all season. 

A Porous Defence

Michael Probst/Associated Press

Most Dortmund fans would like to think that they left their defensive woes behind long ago last season, but this year's troubles could well be just around the corner. 

Although we are yet to see Klopp's side play with their entire first-choice back line this season—with central defender Mats Hummels still out of action—this team's recently fortified defence still looks far from watertight. 

Particular attention should be paid to the two left-backs—Erik Durm and Marcel Schmelzer—who both bring plenty to the side but can also look weak in their own specific ways. Schmelzer isn't nearly as strong a defender as Klopp would like, while Durm is still very raw and hasn't quite looked himself since returning from a summer of hard work with the national team. 

An Unproven Strikeforce

Sascha Schuermann/Associated Press

It's a simply matter of fact that you can't win games without scoring goals, yet at Dortmund this coming season nobody is quite sure just who'll be doing the scoring. 

Klopp has done well to replace the departed Robert Lewandowski with two exciting talents in Adrian Ramos and Ciro Immobile, but there is always the uncertainty of whether either strikers will take off and really make up for the goals lost from the Polish striker. 

Fans will take solace in the knowledge that the club do have an arsenal of goalscoring attacking midfielders in Marco Reus, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but could they make up for two shy forwards? We await to find out. 

An Inexperienced Squad

Sascha Schuermann/Associated Press

Although Klopp is a seasoned manager in the fine arts of winning Bundesliga titles, a lot can be said for the inexperience that has recently flooded his squad. 

Such a factor is obviously nothing more than a side effect of the club's policy of bringing through young, hungry players to Dortmund each transfer window but it can have negative consequences, too. 

In their last league game, Dortmund had just five previous Bundesliga winners in their starting team with a wealth of young talent in Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan and even Reus who have yet to lift the famous trophy. 

As odd as it may seem, what if these young hopefuls are the one thing standing between Dortmund and a Bayern Munich side packed full of established champions? 

An Unsettled Midfield

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

As reported by the club's website this week, Klopp will be without central midfielders Ilkay Gundogan, Oliver Kirch and Nuri Sahin when his side take on Freiburg on Saturday afternoon. 

As such, we're likely to see a central midfield pairing of Sven Bender and either Milos Jojic or Sebastian Kehl; the third pairing in as many games for Dortmund since the start of the season. 

Although such a problem is out of Klopp's control, it will become all too apparent at some point in the season that constantly chopping and changing in the middle of the park will offer little use to the title hopefuls. 

Dortmund need a well established midfield pairing to form a partnership and begin dominating games from one week to the next. That may never happen this season and it could hurt their chances of potential silverware. 

A Constant Battle with Injuries

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

As alluded to in the previous slide, Dortmund will have just 17 first team players available for this weekend's match against Freiburg, due to a barrage of injuries to key players. As things stand, no less than seven key members of the squad will miss the game through some form of physical setback. 

Yet such news tends to fall on deaf ears when it comes to Dortmund fans these days, simply because they have grown all too accustomed to such harsh luck. 

Last season's prospects fell apart when Hummels, Neven Subotic and Lukasz Piszczek all picked up long-term injuries, leaving Klopp with a truly make-shift defensive line. The club got by in the end but having dropped so many silly points against teams they should have beaten they found themselves in second place once again. 

The club have done well to bolster the squad over the summer—bringing in an extra central defender in Matthias Ginter, two new strikers and another attacking midfielder in Shinji Kagawa—yet we await to see if that is enough to quell this apparently inherent problem at the club.