Impressive stuff from Dortmund so far this season. I wonder how long they will manage to keep up with Bayern.
Bundesliga 2015/2016
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I'm starting to worry that they'll reach the 100 goals mark 
. That would annoy me to no end.
. That would annoy me to no end.With the same squad, too.Dortmund with 18 goals now.. last season it took them 17 games to reach that mark
Apparently Favre resigned!
Favre stepped down
Yeah shocking. Would Klopp dare?
Don´t think so. The only German club he would coach in the foreseeable future is Bayern IMO. It is either them or abroad.
Yeah shocking. Would Klopp dare?
I don't know who's available to take over at Gladbach, but I can't see Klopp, to be honest - he's been pretty clear about taking his sabbatical.
Gladbach would essentially be a worse version of Dortmund in every single aspect, even if it wasn't too soon now I can't see Klopp taking over.
I thought Markus Gisdol would go first.
I wonder how many bettors with money on Frontzeck are cursing out Favre today. He was such a lock to get the boot first.
I cannot understand football psychology, how can you be so shit last season and be so good the next season with almost the same squad. We're on fire!
I dont really follow the Bundesliga but just seen Dortmunds line-up and seen Reus on the bench. Anyone know why? Has he been injured?
Yes, but he's already training with the team since Friday, should be back pretty soon.
Yeah, he left the nationalteam during the international break with a broken toe, but started training again last Friday.
They should give Heynckes a call, maybe he's bored at home and there's some love left between him and Gladbach despite that short but awful spell in 2006/07.
You could see why Hernandez is no longer with us. Again he had some good chances, but he was too slow or not clinical enough or whatever. Again no goal. (I don't say that he won't make it at Leverkusen, I say that his current shape really is not convincing and looks like a bigger kind of crisis. Hope for him that he scores soon.)
Just read Dortmund have won all 11 games they've played so far under Tuchel. That's one hell of a start. Can't remember any top team doing that under a new manager.
and scored 39 goals in those 11 games. They should be ashamed that they dropped below the 4 goals a game average this week.
Has anyone watched "Sky90" this evening? They praise the De Bruyne transfer as biggest coup of Allofs career and are impressed with the reaction of the team to that transfer.
Am I the only one who is not convinced by the current Wolfsburg? Sure, their initial reaction vs. Schalke was good (although Schalke is not a strong opponent right now and without the extremely lucky wins vs. Mainz and Stuttgart would be in the same situation as Leverkusen while having played less difficult fixtures) and the win in the CL was well deserved vs. Moskow (who are also hardly world beaters away from home, though), but both the games vs. Ingolstadt and also Berlin, where they massively profited from Dardai being forced to sub twice because of injuries by HT, did not necessarily put me in a state of awe.
Draxler and Kruse are in form class, but Dost is an average striker (who appearantly also has attitude issues, which Hecking was eager to share with the class when he threw him under the bus before AND after the game), Schürrle is still shooting blanks and Lord Bendtner is still well Lord Bendtner.
I actually expect them to get spanked by Bayern on Tuesday, because the latter will finally get some space for the first time since the annual Hamburg bullying.
Wolfsburg will have nothing to do with the title race this season, because they are simply too light in the offense. If one of Draxler or Kruse is unable to play they will fall pretty damn quickly. They have to thank Schalke (led by idiots), Gladbach (in crisis) and Leverkusen (growing pains and one trick pony) because otherwise even the CL would be in pretty big danger.
Am I the only one who is not convinced by the current Wolfsburg? Sure, their initial reaction vs. Schalke was good (although Schalke is not a strong opponent right now and without the extremely lucky wins vs. Mainz and Stuttgart would be in the same situation as Leverkusen while having played less difficult fixtures) and the win in the CL was well deserved vs. Moskow (who are also hardly world beaters away from home, though), but both the games vs. Ingolstadt and also Berlin, where they massively profited from Dardai being forced to sub twice because of injuries by HT, did not necessarily put me in a state of awe.
Draxler and Kruse are in form class, but Dost is an average striker (who appearantly also has attitude issues, which Hecking was eager to share with the class when he threw him under the bus before AND after the game), Schürrle is still shooting blanks and Lord Bendtner is still well Lord Bendtner.
I actually expect them to get spanked by Bayern on Tuesday, because the latter will finally get some space for the first time since the annual Hamburg bullying.
Wolfsburg will have nothing to do with the title race this season, because they are simply too light in the offense. If one of Draxler or Kruse is unable to play they will fall pretty damn quickly. They have to thank Schalke (led by idiots), Gladbach (in crisis) and Leverkusen (growing pains and one trick pony) because otherwise even the CL would be in pretty big danger.
I didn't watch Sky90, but I think your take on it is really really harsh. I don't think they've done much wrong and it seems they've found a great way out of a difficult situation and backed it up with great (albeit a bit lucky) results so far. Obviously they won't challenge for the title this season, but that's not what you should judge a team on after losing their by far best player.
Of course there are differences, I was just trying to point out how the mid-tables in the BPL seem to be a lot more aggressive and seem to take a lot more risks compared to the Bundesliga teams. I know Darmstadt's budget is low but a team's budget only partially plays a role in the quality of their squad and play and given that Darmstadt had just beaten Leverkusen, a team that is at least a perennial CL team, I was a little disappointed by their performance.
@Sphaero check PM please.
Great manager, but Gladbach has really been shocking this season.
Hopefully a good club hires him.
This is where I disagree. They let the matters of Perisic and de Bruyne go until the last day to squeeze out some extra cash and then had no time to actually use the money wisely (it reminds me a lot of the Spurs under Levy). They were left sitting on 40 Mil. € plus, which now lies around and has to be taxed. They don´t need that money to keep the club running as they are backed by VW.
For De Bruyne they brought in Draxler, who might not be able to completely replace the Belgian, but does in good form compensate the loss for the most part. Perisic left without anyone coming in. The Hunt transfer can be neglected as he was no serious option anyway.
On paper their strongest front formation is probably this: Gustavo - Schürrle, Draxler, Kruse, Caliguri - Dost
Their striking force is for a team with the ambition to reach the CL KO stages simply too weak. Allofs can talk about not having options on the market all he wants, if he would have sorted out the deals earlier, he could have gotten upgrades (who transfered this Summer) given the high wages and the CL.
Vierinha is actually their best winger, but is also their best RB, so the combination Vierinha-Caliguri on the right side is probably the strongest. Who is actually their option for the left wing if Schürrle can´t play or continues to suck like he does right now? You could put Draxler there, where he loses quite a bit of impact and Arnold in the central position or you change the formation to a two man midfield by bringing Guilavogui in. Another option for the offensive midfield would have been crucial IMO.
But, hey, at least they got Dante for the defense. He is right now probably an upgrade to both Klose and Knoche, but expecially in the case of the latter a clear sign for not being needed anymore. After playing a good season, he was already left out of the starting line ups for whatever reason and does not even make the squad right now. For a defender with so much promise he is simply too good for the 4th CB option and should have been either sold or loaned out the moment Dante came in. Instead they wasting him now for at least one season.
Knoche already lost his position in the starting11 in the end of last season to Klose and Tim Klose is extremely average. Nobody seems to really know why Hecking change his mind about Knoche, but he certainly did. It would have been crazy to start a season with Naldo - Klose so buying another CB was definitely the right decision.
@Sphaero
Isn't the big question in all that if they actually knew at the start of the window that De Bruyne definitely wanted to leave? Pretty much all of it falls apart if we assume that Allofs and Hecking honestly believed that De Bruyne would accept to stay and only late in the window started to push for a move. Obviously their transfer window wasn't perfect, but it's not been a huge mess either.
I don't think Perisic is really such a big deal. Schürrle will find some form soon enough.
Isn't the big question in all that if they actually knew at the start of the window that De Bruyne definitely wanted to leave? Pretty much all of it falls apart if we assume that Allofs and Hecking honestly believed that De Bruyne would accept to stay and only late in the window started to push for a move. Obviously their transfer window wasn't perfect, but it's not been a huge mess either.
I don't think Perisic is really such a big deal. Schürrle will find some form soon enough.
That depends on your definition of it. For me three weeks before the closure is not late anymore in today´s football. In mid August Hecking already stated that the offers screwed with De Bruyne´s head and around the same time was that award show debacle. The reactions on that were telling and quite frankly his first league performance vs. Frankfurt left not much doubt. I remember watching the game with a couple of friends and at HT one spoke out what all people were thinking about: that he was gone.
At least at that point the officials should have started making plan B´s in the case of a departure. You can scout and even negotiate and leave your options open in the unlikely case that he stayed. Hell, Wolfsburg should have had enough ressources to sign a couple of players anyway. They lacked quality depth in the offense in the first place.
With that you mean, VW should have given them enough money to buy those players, even though the club didn't really have the ressources, right?
Dortmund, wow.
CL money? And come on, we are talking about the same club, which had no qualms paying 32 Mil. € for Schürlle or 25 for De Bruyne in winter windows.
Without the De Bruyne-Draxler swap they would have ended the window with an even result. They declared themselves the Bayern hunter Nr. 1 and a consistent position in the CL and there should have had second thoughts about actually investing into the squad? Don´t think so.
Looks like Dortmund have hit some form again. Did they make some major changes over the summer?
The manager for one thing...
True, obviously they've got a new manager in, and from what I gather he was decent with Mainz. Could be that Klopp had just stagnated, and they just needed someone new in charge.
To be fair to Wolfsburg, Allofs clearly stated after the Schürrle transfer that they won't spend money in the summer. It wasn't really that surprising to me.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that Wolfsburg's squad is unbalanced and has some major flaws, but it's still a strong team and it wasn't really that easy to improve on last season once De Bruyne left. I wouldn't praise Allofs overall for the transfer window, but signing Draxler and Dante was a pretty good way out.
He was a bit more than decent. He established them in the midtable of the league and even got them into the EL qualifiers. He was basically the hottest coaching candidate in Germany after stepping down.
The biggest change in terms of playing personell was a better GK (probably the first time a real difference maker today) and better midfield options. Weigl was simply a really lucky draw for us, because it made us less reliant on Sahin.
Just seen the highlights of Dortmund vs Leverkusen, though it was just highlights, their players off the ball movement, through passes, feints, and short quick passing when surrounded by players is a joy too watch
Yeah as usual for Dortmund to be honest.
But i really don't know why people are so surprised of them beeing strong 'again'. In fact they had only 1 desastrous half of a season. Everything just came together, Lewandowski left, many players injured, a lot of unluck in the beginning and then the players lost their confidence. And because of that people just written them down. But as far as i remember they were the best team of the league in the second half of the season and now they are proving what they can once again.
Can't wait for the game Bayern vs. BVB in 2 weeks.
Hopefully both still with a clean winning streak, even tough that's not likely.Yeah as usual for Dortmund to be honest.
But i really don't know why people are so surprised of them beeing strong 'again'. In fact they had only 1 desastrous half of a season. Everything just came together, Lewandowski left, many players injured, a lot of unluck in the beginning and then the players lost their confidence. And because of that people just written them down. But as far as i remember they were the best team of the league in the second half of the season and now they are proving what they can once again.
Can't wait for the game Bayern vs. BVB in 2 weeks.
No, that was actually Gladbach by quite some distance, which just shows how fast you can go down this spiral. The top 4 of both season halfs consisted of the same teams. We placed 5th in the second one, which was of course a big improvement but still nothing to brag about. We had a good finish, though. To be completely honest, the only reason we managed to climb so much was the extremely competive mid table, where the teams constantly took points of each other. 46 points should normally never be enough to play internationally.