Sphaero
Struggling to explain his genius to the hoi polloi
I strongly disagree. It looks like Dortmund are playing something inbetween a 4141/4231. For the balance-giving CM they have Gündogan and Castro, maybe even Mkhitaryan if need be. So no need here.
For the more attacking CM position (or #10) they have Kagawa, Reus, Mkhitaryan and Castro can play here too. That at best leaves the solo / defensive 6 for him. Where they already have Sahin (who imho Geis is quite similar too, but still worse), Weigl and maybe Bender/Castro as more situational options.
If Weigl can't keep his current level then they could probably use another #6, but so far he's performed really well and in any case I think Mainz was asking too much with their demand of €12-15m and a share of his next sale.
If they decide to spend big it should be for a LB, (Schmelzer has had a very good start to the season, but he still has his limitations), a second striker or a more convincing AM alternative than Kampl. However aside from my doubts about Ramos (and assuming that Weigl will remain a useful option) I think that their squad looks excellent in terms of depth and first XI, at least by Bundesliga standards.
Nah, Geis´ price was justified and normal. We simply did not need him the moment we signed a more unknown alternative to him, though.
I would take Sahin over both anyway, especially taking his standing as lead player into account, but Weigl has so far impressed pretty much everyone and proven to be excellent cover, which is a role Geis would probably not wanted.
I don´t see us spending anything at all until the end of the window, at most a striker talent in the place of Ducksch, who might be on the way out. The squad is actually too big right now, even with three competitions. Leitner and Großkreutz have no real perspective anymore. I see the former´s departure as pretty certain, probably towards his old club Augsburg. The latter will have to decide, if he wants to spend a whole season as the teams mascot aka. the back up of the back up. There is also chatter about Kuba, but he should only go if he himself expresses the wish to leave to play elsewhere as a starter.
In terms of the LB position I really don´t get why Schmelzer still gets so much heat. The guy has stepped up his offensive contribution a lot (his defense was always solid) since Tuchel took over and has been overall one of our best performer in 2015, so basically since he was in physical top shape which is very important for him. Serious upgrades would be way harder to come by as some would think. The only two remaining players in the Bundesliga are completely unobtainable for us (Alaba/Rodriguez) and the other one just left for 25 Mil.€ to Chelsea, a sum that would not have been worth for us. If we want to take a look at our Fullbacks, it would have to be his counterpart Piscu, who gets away with way worse performances than Schmelzer and has been the weakest link in the pre season and the officials games so far.
The central defense and midfield are set and pretty damn stacked and so is our offensive midfield IMO. We have with Reus and Mkhitaryan two set starters in most games and then Kagawa, Kampl, Hofmann and Kuba battling for the remaining spot. On top of that the hybrids Gündogan and Castro who can play there plus our most talented academy prospect Jeremy Dudziak, who is seen as left midfielder by Tuchel rather than as the LB he was under Klopp. Thats more than enough in terms of overall quality and depth. I actually don´t want more players there given that I hope that Mkhitaryan extends sooner or later and the rest have long contracts.
The reason for that are two players in our academy whom I have high expectations for. The first one, Felix Passlack, should be rather well known as Germany´s U17 captain and standout player of the last Euro. He is physically far enough developed that I can see him making his first steps in professional football in the next season. The other one might be even more spectacular at least for the eyes. I normally do not get that overly excited with youth players, because I know how much can go wrong with talents, but the first time I have seen US mega talent Christian Pulisic live I was literally shocked at his sublime technical ability. I have only seen one Dortmund youth player before with that much ability on the ball at that age: a certain play maker who had other plans than to stick with Dortmund for the long haul.
Maybe it is a bit wishful thinking on my part, but I believe that the chances of at least one of the them managing a direct breakthrough for Dortmund are pretty damn high, so I don´t want too many squad players sitting ahead of them and preventing them getting enough chances on professional level for us.
The part where we are probably the most vulnerable is the striker position, where a long injury of Aubameyang (thankfully he is not injury prone at all) could really hurt us a lot. For the normal recovery times Ramos is more than enough, though.