Borussia Dortmund Return to Bundesliga with a Point but Bad Habits Still Remain

Borussia Dortmund kicked off the second half of the season with a well-fought 0-0 draw away to Bayer Leverkusen, adding an all-important point to their tally. The 2015 road to redemption may have only started with a modest step forward rather than a heavy sprint, yet Jurgen Klopp will be pleased with what his side offered at the BayArena. 

However, there was plenty to huff and puff about from the Westfalenstadion faithful. Dortmund may have matched a Roger Schmidt side emphatically pushing for Champions League football this season, but the same old problems still consistently undermined every effort. 

Dortmund, for all their hard work and success in grabbing a draw at a tough away ground, still remain frustrating to watch for fans and critics alike. Bad habits die hard and unfortunately far too many are still haunting Klopp's team. 

What lies at the root of Dortmund's problems is an inability to score goals. It isn't the quality of the players up front, but rather those further down the pitch who are tasked with putting the ball at their feet.

The likes of the returning Marco Reus, new signing Kevin Kampl and Ciro Immobile all looked bright when on the ball but often found themselves chasing punts up the park that the Leverkusen defence seemed all too happy to oblige. 

We far too often see the likes of Marcel Schmelzer, Sven Bender, Lukasz Piszczek and other defensive players give possession away far too cheaply, with passes that really baffle and frustrate any right-minded fan.

This insistence on playing a nervy, somewhat clumsy long-ball game is one that offers very few solutions, when in fact a side like Dortmund should be playing the ball out of defence and trying to layer plays through an opposition midfield. 

Klopp's insistence on flooding the middle of the park with defensive grunts—as we saw with Matthias Ginter and Kevin Grosskreutz alongside Nuri Sahin in this match—has an adverse effect on his team because it means they can't retain possession, can't play match-winning assists and ultimately struggle to score goals. 

Saturday's 0-0 draw with Leverkusen may be welcomed in terms of another point on the board but it now means the club have only scored 18 goals in 18 Bundesliga matches. Forget the defensive frailties, forget the injuries, Dortmund are in this mess because Klopp's team isn't set up to score goals. 

This then shines light on an important question: What is it exactly that the manager has been working on with his team at training each week over the past 12 months? Dortmund have a squad full of quality players yet the defence punt the ball up the park as if Robert Lewandowski is still waiting to pick it out of the sky. 

Where the Dortmund boss has seemed determined to pick and choose between his roster whenever results don't go their way, perhaps he would be better suited going back to the tactics board and developing a system that suits the players he now has. 

In one manner or another, Dortmund have been trying to play the same football for the past four years despite losing key members of a squad that made it click. This is a brand new team that Klopp and his board have invested in yet it's going to waste because the manager simply won't develop a new system for it. 

Saturday's draw keeps Dortmund bottom of the Bundesliga table, with a point now separating them with 17th-placed Stuttgart. Yet with Augsburg, Freiburg, Mainz and then Stuttgart in the coming weeks, that all-important win will eventually come and this famous club will pull themselves out of relegation. 

However, unless Klopp wipes the slate clean and gets back to basics with the system his team are currently playing, then we'll continue to see Dortmund struggle to score and get back to the summit of the Bundesliga table. 

Dortmund have welcomed the new year with a point but 2014's bad habits still loom large over the Black and Yellows. 

@Sbienkowski