Can Dortmund Ever Recover from Losing Gotze and Lewandowski to Bayern?

Although Borussia Dortmund’s recent defeat to Bayern Munich will now be at the back of most fan’s minds after the DFB-Pokal win over Hoffenheim, a much larger tone certainly began to resonate from the narrow defeat.

Jurgen Klopp’s side could never truly take much from a clash with Pep Guardiola’s team, yet when Robert Lewandowski scored that goal to the celebration of his teammates (including a certain Mario Gotze), every Dortmund fan began to think the very same thing: Will we ever replace those two stars?

When we talk about Dortmund’s inability to replace the likes of Gotze and Lewandowski, we are of course discussing a wider topic that has engulfed the club since 2012: Can they challenge Bayern for the German title in the foreseeable future?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty truth behind any potential replacement for the two aforementioned players, we first need to acknowledge that this is the primary aim of Klopp and his backroom staff. Dortmund need to start challenging for the Bundesliga title again, and they can’t do that until they replace these two players.

Such a conundrum can be addressed in the transfer market, but Dortmund has been unable to wrestle any good fortune from it for quite some time.

Although the club still retain a reputation for harbouring some of Europe’s most fascinating talent and indeed remaining proactive in the European market, Klopp has done little to suggest he or his chairman, Hans-Joachim Watzke, actually know what they’re doing.

Before we get stuck on the players brought in and tasked with replacing the former club favourites, we must acknowledge the club’s odd policy of only signing players at specific positions.

When we look at the key players purchased in the past four transfer windows—Kevin Kampl, Shinji Kagawa, Adrian Ramos, Ciro Immobile, Matthias Ginter, Nuri Sahin(finalised deal), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Milos Jojic and Sokratis Papastathopoulos—we find a theme begin to emerge.

All of them are strikers, attacking midfielders or central defenders. This shows a total disregard and utter neglect for the full-back and goalkeeper positions that have plagued Dortmund’s season. Klopp may not have a replacement for Lewandowski or Gotze yet, but in the process of finding them, he has neglected some key parts of his team.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

Even within that group of recently acquired players we can see the desperate hand of a manager and chairman struggling to find an adequate goalscorer and playmaker for their team.

Immobile and Ramos came into the side this season with opposite styles of play, yet neither has managed to fit into a system that still caters to the departed Polish striker.

Aubameyang, who arrived last year, looks as though he has found some consistency in the team, but that’s really been through Klopp’s ability to harness his raw pace. Long punts up the park and vague through balls aplenty have represented the blunt tactical approach of Klopp, and fortunately for him, it has worked to an extent.

Yet Lewandowski’s role in the side still goes unfilled.

A similar scenario has unraveled itself with regard to Gotze, who despite tumbling along at his new club at an underwhelming but acceptable pace, continues to plague Klopp’s transfer policy.

The club have spent a fortune trying to replace the World Cup winner. First was Mkhitaryan, then came Kagawa and then, in this year's January transfer window, we saw the former German champions pick up Kevin Kampl in the hope of reigniting their attack.

The demise of Mkhitaryan at Dortmund is a topic that will be studied in sports psychology classes for decades to come, while the repurchase of Kagawa is beginning to look more and more like an act of desperation in the dying moments of a transfer window.

Kampl, at 24 years of age and full of promise, may yet prove himself to be a valuable member of the squad, yet any notion of overloading him with expectation seems farfetched and all too dangerous around the Westfalenstadion these days.

Many Dortmund fans will point to Marco Reus, who picked up an astronomical amount of goals and—perhaps more importantly—assists last season, yet for the club to truly challenge Bayern, they need someone who can shoulder some of the pressure the German left-winger so clearly carries alone in this side.

Fans will fondly remember the antics Reus and Gotze used to get up to on the pitch as Dortmund terrorised the German top division and will rightfully long for a return to such days. Reus needs a partner in crime. He simply can’t do it alone.

On the surface of it all, it would seem as though a healthy dose of fortune may be all Dortmund need to regain their former strength. Yet when we dig deeper, it becomes a little more cynical.

Looking at the club’s continued failures in the transfer market and the clear, abundant talent that’s going to waste within this side, a slightly more pessimistic suggestion would be to employ a fresh perspective.

Perhaps Klopp’s time is done at Dortmund. He came, he built his team and he raised his warriors, but those days are gone. To ask this manager to start from scratch again may be much harder and far more unrealistic than to find a replacement for Gotze or Lewandowski.

@sbienkowski