Ordinary, Toothless Borussia Dortmund Lack Creative Spark in RB Leipzig Defeat

Borussia Dortmund fell 1-0 to newly promoted RB Leipzig in their first away trip of the 2016/17 Bundesliga season on Saturday evening.

It was the expected tough match against an opponent that is anything but a normal promoted side, but even the most pessimistic fans of the Black and Yellows would have expected a better performance from their team.

Most match reports will likely tell their readers that Dortmund were stunned at the death by Naby Keita's goal with one minute to go in regulation, but if truth be told, Leipzig were deserved winners for a courageous second-half showing against a surprisingly harmless BVB side.

Head coach Thomas Tuchel's team only managed eight shots throughout the game, which, per the club's official website, was a negative record under the 43-year-old: "They have only had fewer once under Tuchel, in a 1-0 victory in Leverkusen in February."

To make matters worse, the Black and Yellows were inaccurate with their few attempts, per OptaFranz:

As the season goes on, it's likely to become clear that losing at Leipzig isn't too big a shame. Their Austrian head coach, Ralph Hasenhuttl, impressed with FC Ingolstadt last season, making life tough on opponents with a near-perfect defensive structure and pressing all over the field.

At Leipzig, he's implemented the same concepts with a much more talented roster, as to be expected with a Red Bull-fuelled club that was able to invest €50 million in new players in the summer, detailed in an earlier piece.

It's not a normal promoted side that can bring Keita and Oliver Burke, two of Europe's most highly sought-after young talents, on from the bench. The duo promptly combined for the winning goal on Saturday.

Still, though, Dortmund's lack of answers to Leipzig's playing style was alarming.

Despite the inclusion of Julian Weigl from the start, their build-up play lacked decisiveness and structure. The hosts put in a lot of effort to take the Germany international out of the game and largely succeeded. Per WhoScored.com, the 21-year-old only had 79 touches of the ball, far fewer than in most matches last season.

With the principal ball distributor in midfield tightly marked, the onus was on Marc Bartra to initiate play from the back. The 25-year-old had a whopping 132 touches and often tried stepping up into midfield areas to get better passing lanes and angles, but his accuracy was lacking too often.

The Catalan has mostly defended well in the first two Bundesliga matches, but his ball-playing has taken a nosedive since the DFL-Supercup game against Bayern Munich. 

Tuchel had envisaged Leipzig making it difficult for Dortmund to have a structured build-up play and showed an interesting wrinkle in possession, with central midfielder Sebastian Rode moving to the right side of a three-man back line.

The 25-year-old, Lukasz Piszczek and Gonzalo Castro manned the right wing but utterly disappointed throughout the game. Tuchel's decision to bench youngsters Felix Passlack and Ousmane Dembele, opting for the experience of Piszczek and Castro, backfired massively.

With too many players not hitting their form in the deeper zones of the pitch, Dortmund's three forward players, Andre Schurrle, Mario Gotze and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, were hung out to dry for the most part. The Gabon international only had 19 touches in 84 minutes.

As this graphic shows, the team simply failed to get the ball to them on a consistent basis:

Tuchel conceded after the match to Sky (via the club's website): "Time and time again we made unnecessary mistakes, which is why we couldn't establish ourselves in the opposition half. We were not forced into errors so often; we made life difficult for ourselves."

Indeed, a barrage of bad first touches, unnecessarily overhit passes and general inaccuracy doomed Dortmund. Gotze was the only player whose technique was up to par.

The 24-year-old made his long-awaited second debut for the club after not featuring in any of the first three competitive matches of the campaign and hinted at his world-class potential from the early goings, displaying a joy for the game that many feel was missing in his performances for Bayern and the national team.

It's obvious that he and Schurrle have a good understanding. The latter played off Gotze time and time again, running into the spaces Dortmund's No. 10 created and receiving the ball off him.

It's no coincidence Schurrle was the only Dortmund man to threaten Leipzig's goal. The former VfL Wolfsburg attacker had the only two truly dangerous attempts, even hitting the woodwork in the second half. In that instance, however, he would've been better off squaring for Aubameyang rather than smashing the ball.

Overall, though, it was far too little going forward from the visitors. Dembele gave them a little jolt of energy after entering the pitch with 20 minutes to go, but the 19-year-old's end product wasn't there.

Still, playing Castro on the wing instead of Dembele, or even Christian Pulisic, was an odd decision from Tuchel. The 43-year-old played it safe against Leipzig, with his side looking ordinary in return. Their performance was a far cry from the team that scored a club-record 82 goals last season.

It's only two matchdays into the Bundesliga season, but Dortmund have a clearly visible, gaping hole in their creative department. The loss of three principal build-up players in Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan is weighing heavy on the team.

That was to be expected, of course, and one could argue it was awkward timing to face a side as relentless as Leipzig at this early stage of the season, when the Ruhr side still have to come together as a cohesive unit, but Dortmund need to find answers and soon.

Tuchel won't get to work on that on the training pitch much, seeing as Dortmund have a jam-packed schedule to navigate; Saturday was the first of seven matches in 21 days.

The hope is, naturally, that important figures such as Gotze, Weigl, Piszczek or Schurrle will improve their form through those matches, but there's no guarantee that the Black and Yellows won't drop valuable points.

Leipzig and, to lesser degree, Mainz 05, BVB's opening-day opponents, have given other teams a blueprint to stifle Dortmund, and working around that is going to be a continuous challenge for Tuchel's side.

There are no immediate fixes in sight, but expect the coach to tinker with his personnel over the forthcoming stretch of matches. Raphael Guerreiro, for instance, should get a run in central midfield, where Rode's ultra-conservative passing is more obstacle than help with Weigl struggling next to him.

Ultimately, this rather bumpy start to the campaign doesn't come as a surprise—in fact, it was predicted in an earlier piece. The question, however, is how quickly Dortmund can find solutions to their obvious problems.

The next few weeks and months will tell whether a loss at Leipzig was merely a shot across the bows or a sign of deeply rooted, structural problems for the Black and Yellows.

Lars Pollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.