A Fan’s Perspective: Borussia Dortmund coach Lucien Favre needs time to integrate players

Borussia Dortmund coach Lucien Favre has had plenty of time with his squad but is still struggling to figure out his best XI.

Lucien Favre said a lot of things when he first took charge of Borussia Dortmund and a lot of his interviews were mostly encouraging. While he did say that he didn’t depend on statistical analysis, he did talk of how he studied his opponents and that inspired confidence in his tactical approach. Dortmund has had some incredibly meticulous coaches in recent years like Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel, who branded the team with their unique style of play.

Favre’s style of play so far, however, has been reminiscent of BVB’s more recent coaching debacles of Peter Bosz and Peter Stoger.  The team is lacking creativity and is heavily dependent on individual brilliance to break opposition defenses. The concept of having a well-thought-out plan is predominant in modern football and a coach who sets his team to defend is not exactly enticing.

His selection has been off, despite certain players performing better than others at this point. Jadon Sancho and Marco Reus for instance, have tremendous chemistry and that should be used intelligently. However, Sancho’s involvement has been limited in favor of more experienced players.

So far, five players have played every minute for BVB (480′)–Piszczek, Reus, Burki, Diallo, and Akanji, closely followed by Schmelzer (477′), Dahoud (392′), Marius Wolf (388′), Witsel (337′), Delaney (323′) and Philipp (271′).

Those players above, form a pretty obvious line-up with a 4-3-3 formation and that’s the worry. While it is good that the coach has a steady line-up, it is pretty obvious that several names on that list do not deserve to be full-time starters for the club. The likes of Pulisic, Sancho, Gotze, Weigl, Kagawa, and Hakimi have been reduced to bench-roles or completely ignored. Most of these players were expected to form the core of BVB’s future and not giving them game time is only hindering their progress.

Favre’s argument so far has been that the team has produced results but that’s something even Bosz managed to do for the first half of his tenure at the club. Favre needs to find a healthy system of rotating his players and introduce a sense of competition in the squad. Currently, it seems like he is appeasing the senior members who are leaders in the dressing room.

Some of the strong decisions he has made so far, include the benching of Mario Gotze, Shinji Kagawa and the promotion of Mahmoud Dahoud to a starter.

We do not know if these strategies will help him gain some amount of control over the players but we can already see club captain Marco Reus pushing for the inclusion of Mario Gotze with public statements. It is a dangerous line to walk as the coach should never be taken for granted by the players.

Hopefully, this is just Favre’s period of adjustment and he will eventually make bolder decisions in his selection and tactics. The fans should be patient and let him do things his way, at least till December, before they can question his methods.