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What is Borussia Dortmund’s best midfield combination?

By Navjot Kasukurthy

26 August 2018, Dortmund, Germany: Soccer, Bundesliga: Borussia Dortmund vs. RB Leipzig, 1st game day in Signal Iduna Park. Dortmund's Axel Witsel (l) and Dortmund's Mahmoud Dahoud talk during the game. Photo: Guido Kirchner/dpa - IMPORTANT NOTICE: DFL regulations prohibit any use of photographs as image sequences and/or quasi-video. (Photo by Guido Kirchner/picture alliance via Getty Images)
26 August 2018, Dortmund, Germany: Soccer, Bundesliga: Borussia Dortmund vs. RB Leipzig, 1st game day in Signal Iduna Park. Dortmund's Axel Witsel (l) and Dortmund's Mahmoud Dahoud talk during the game. Photo: Guido Kirchner/dpa - IMPORTANT NOTICE: DFL regulations prohibit any use of photographs as image sequences and/or quasi-video. (Photo by Guido Kirchner/picture alliance via Getty Images) /
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The club brought in Thomas Delaney and Axel Witsel to strengthen their weak midfield but still has an excess of midfielders which makes the midfield combination difficult to pin down.

Lucien Favre has made it pretty clear that his midfield is going to revolve around Delaney, Witsel and Mahmoud Dahoud until one of those three manages to drop from significantly. It has been an interesting few months for the club with Witsel already establishing himself as a clutch player. However, the club has so many good midfielders on the roster right now that it is easy to question whether the coach is making the right choices.

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This has always been a problem with the club as there are so many players, and so many opinions floating around that make it difficult to be objective. Some might think that Mario Gotze is still playing as he used to in 2013 while others think Shinji Kagawa is the solution to all of the club’s problems. Some think Delaney is not the kind of midfielder Borussia Dortmund should use in its starting lineup. There are also plenty of fans who believe that Julian Weigl is going to be as good as Sergio Busquets.

We will never know the answer to these questions because a lot of the players currently on the bench have a common shortcoming that puts them all in more or less, the same category–inconsistency. None of Dortmund’s midfielders are consistent enough for the fans to form a definitive opinion on them. On the one hand, players like Gotze and Weigl are controlling games single-handedly while on the other, they’re ghosts on the pitch and make things look like BVB is a man-down.

While Kagawa may be the only player amongst those currently on the bench who has any history of consistency, his performances can be pretty erratic too, which is why he has failed to pin down a spot for himself under several different coaches in the past year.

At the moment, Witsel is pretty much a lock in the starting XI. Delaney has also been making a case for himself with strong performances in midfield. It will be interesting to see how he does once Julian Weigl starts training with the squad regularly but for the time being, he is a lock too. Even Dahoud is starting to gain confidence and he deserves to continue for the time being. There have been rumors flying around about Gotze leaving but he is still a wonderful talent and needs the coach’s confidence to perform.

So far, Favre’s choices in the middle of the park have paid off but unless he rotates heavily, Dortmund could be laying the seeds for the departure for at least one key midfielder which will disappoint thousands of fans.

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