Borussia Dortmund's Bundesliga Resurgence Slows in Disappointing Draw at Hamburg

Borussia Dortmund hit a bump on their road to recovery on Saturday afternoon, when a well-drilled Hamburg side held them to a disappointing 0-0 draw at the Volksparkstadion, Hamburg's northern abode. 

Although Josef Zinnbauer will be ecstatic at picking up a point from the travelling black and yellow behemoths, it was in truth a poor game in which neither side really deserved to claim a victory.

In fact, such a result will go down not as two points dropped in this limbo season of Dortmund's, but one in which Jurgen Klopp's side once again looked blunt and out of ideas whenever they tried to break down their opponents.

Forget the result; Dortmund looked laboured, ill-prepared and ultimately nothing like their former selves whenever on the ball and hoping to score a goal. 

Looking through this side and at such a performance, there are a number of reasons behind this and, ultimately, solutions that could be applied. Yet Klopp continues to stick to his guns, and as we saw on Saturday, it does often cost him. 

One of the key and most notable differences in Dortmund's buildup play was in midfield, with the introduction of Sven Bender for the injured Nuri Sahin diminishing the side's ability to pass the ball through the middle of the park. 

If we take a look at the Squawka graphic below, we can clearly see the German international favours passing the ball from left to right with little difficulty, but struggles to find his team-mates whenever asked to start making more attacking, daring passes forward. 

Squawka

The constant sight of the box-to-box tackler happily thumping every loose ball up the park was undoubtedly greeted by his front line and fans alike with loud groans of disapproval. Such an approach does little for any buildup play and often tends to derail Dortmund's chances of scoring. 

This isn't exactly a criticism of the player—Bender is a standard defensive midfielder and has no intention of becoming a playmaker—but it is a clear case of Klopp trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Sure, bring Bender in when the team need defensive fortitude, but Dortmund will suffer going forward as a result. 

Such an inability to make coherent passes or even actively seek out a team-mate with a swipe at the ball is a problem that also persists in the full-back positions, and it is once again a key factor in Dortmund looking so blunt in attack this season. 

When we look at this squad, we see players envied the world over in attack (Marco Reus), the centre of midfield (Ilkay Gundogan) and in defence (Mats Hummels), but no such talent seems to reside on either of Dortmund's flanks. 

Saturday's game was played with Marcel Schmelzer on the left and Oliver Kirch on the right, and throughout the game, we saw both fail miserably at offering anything coherent in attack, despite having very little to do for much of the game in defence. 

Again, looking at another Squawka graphic below, we can see just how wasteful both players were when awarded the opportunity to cross the ball into the box and potentially set up Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or one of the three attacking midfielders. 

Squawka

It's a damning sight for a team with such ability going forward that Schmelzer only found one player throughout the ninety minutes from six separate crosses. Three of which coming from set-piece corners. 

Although both Schmelzer and Kirch would probably struggle to make it into a fully fit starting XI at Dortmund these days, their superiors Erik Durm and Lukasz Piszczek actually offer very little else in exchange. For such an important part in any side, Dortmund have been neglecting their flanks for a number of years now, and it's notably holding them back in attack. 

There were, of course, more direct problems in Dortmund's offensive game on the day—Henrikh Mkhitaryan was once again a shadow of himself and Shinji Kagawa was far too easily brushed aside by Hamburg's tenacious defence—but such issues are ones that Klopp seems happy to address from one game to the next. 

The front line is often shuffled on a game-by-game basis, with a whole host of alternatives making appearances each week, yet we don't see that same attention to detail with Klopp's full-backs or indeed the central midfield. 

Dortmund failed to score on Saturday against a well-versed, but distinctly average Hamburg team. However, what should trouble fans more than any points lost is the repeat offences this side continue to make this season. 

@Sbienkowski