Borussia Dortmund Revert Back to Their Bundesliga Slump Against Cologne

It was all going so well. Marco Reus had just signed a new contract extension, Borussia Dortmund were winning games again and, for the first time in recent memory, fans were once again looking forward with hope. That was a month ago, and as we all know, the world of football can change in the blink of an eye. 

Fast-forward to Saturday evening at the Westfalenstadion and Jurgen Klopp's side are once again chasing shadows, aimlessly lumping balls forward all to the backing track of an animated Jurgen Klopp. Dortmund seems as though they're back in their slump and failing to win vital league games. 

Although the Black and Yellows have only played two games in March, they've already dropped four points in a top division that simply doesn't allow for inconsistency. Fans and critics alike know that the club desperately want European football next season, yet they now sit nine points off the last remaining Europa League spot. 

So what went wrong?

Like many of the young players who have come to embody Klopp's side over the past few years, Dortmund often seem to resemble an emotional, tormented teenager who could be quite brilliant one week but then revert back to their huff the next. 

At the heart of everything Dortmund do so well lies their attacking intent, which, like most sides, is the key aspect of any hope they have of overcoming each and every opponent they come up against in Germany and across Europe. 

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

The first port of call when we consider the faults in such a poor team performance is Reus, who, with 11 goals in 20 games, is undoubtedly the catalyst to any attacking concoction Dortmund can muster in the German top division. 

Despite not doing anything wrong specifically, the German international has looked laboured over the past two games since he came off injured against Dynamo Dresden in the DFB-Pokal just a few weeks ago. Reus was given the all clear by the club's medical staff, but there must be some in and around the club who question such a decision based on his last two games. 

The 25-year-old looks laboured on the ball and tired off it, and in general he has come to represent a player who had perhaps been a little too kind to his own body's limitations. Reus is an outstanding player, but the amount of football he's missed out on—for Dortmund and Germany—would drive anyone mad. 

Could the star have suggested he was match-fit just to ensure he didn't miss any more of such a dramatic and important part of the campaign?

Elsewhere, the team were let down by the usual suspects through a manner of repeat offences or simply not being good enough in the first place. 

The most notable personnel change to have affected Dortmund's last two disappointing results have of course been the return of Sven Bender and Sebastian Kehl, who both took a turn filling in for the injured Nuri Sahin in the middle of the park. 

Sahin, a player who once returned to Dortmund a broken man after his jaunt in Madrid, has since pulled himself back up to the position of passer-in-chief among the team's gang of midfielders and as such offers a truly vital style of football to Klopp's team. 

As such, when Bender and Kehl take a shot at the role, both tend to play their usual defensive game perfectly well but obviously can't bring to the table the passing and attacking intent that Sahin offers each and every week. 

Dortmund look slower, clumsier and altogether blunter on the ball when either of the two defensive midfielders come into the side, and as we've seen against Hamburg and on Saturday in the 0-0 draw against Cologne, it completely stumps their ability to score goals. 

Credit: Squawka

Similarly, repeat offender Marcel Schmelzer was back at his usual antics in the role of left-back against the Billy Goats and offered absolutely nothing in attack throughout the 90 minutes. 

The Squawka graphic above shows the defender's passing throughout the match, clearly depicting the manner in which Schmelzer tends to react to possession of the ball. 

Although there is no official count of where the left-back's passes went, we can see just how often he tended to make it five yards over the halfway line only to then pass back inside to either Ilkay Gundogan or Kehl. 

Favoured for a number of years by Klopp because of his technical ability on the ball and his set-piece taking, Schmelzer actually very rarely makes an intuitive pass forward or indeed contributes to the team in any attacking sense. 

According to the aforementioned stats website, the German international attempted six crosses/set pieces on Saturday and found a colleague just twice. It's not a record to be proud of by any stretch of the imagination, but it is one that seems to repeat itself for Schmelzer each and every week. 

In the end, a draw was far from the worst thing that could have happened on the day–especially when we thumb through some of Dortmund's recent memories from this season—but it was a match that could have offered so much more. This wasn't Klopp's team at its best by any measure and could quite possibly be a revert back to the slump we saw earlier in the season.

@sbienkowski