Dire Borussia Dortmund held to goalless draw by FC Nuremberg

Borussia Dortmund’s winless run extended to five games after they were held to a goalless draw by a determined Nuremberg side.

Lucien Favre made three changes to the team that lost to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday, with Marius Wolf, Julian Weigl and Raphael Guerreiro coming in for Achraf Hakimi, Omer Toprak and Christian Pulisic respectively. But Borussia Dortmund were far from their best, and were made to pay by a determined Nuremberg side.

Borussia Dortmund started slowly and despite dominating possession, most of their early play involved a lot of sideways and backward passes as Nuremberg put ten men behind the ball. The league leaders started to grow in confidence as the half went on but Nuremberg continued to frustrate them. Mario Gotze came close three times in the first half, but was denied by Christian Mathenia on all three occasions.

There were plenty of reasons for Borussia Dortmund to feel aggrieved in the first half. Jadon Sancho was fouled inside the area but the referee decided against giving a penalty and VAR failed to overturn the decision. Nuremberg fans were also the cause of frustration for Borussia Dortmund as they kept throwing what looked like tennis balls on the pitch every time the away side got a corner. That led to multiple stoppages in play as the players had to pick the balls up and put them away and it really slowed down Dortmund’s momentum.

The second half was more of the same as Dortmund enjoyed plenty of possession, played a lot of sideways passes and put in a lot of crosses, without any success. Lucien Favre brought Paco Alcacer on in the hopes that the Spaniard could lift his side to another victory. But even he failed to provide any spark to the team as they missed Marco Reus’ creativity and goalscoring ability. Fellow substitute Jacob Bruun Larsen did find the back of the net, but Alcacer was adjudged to be offside in the build-up and the goal did not count.

Dortmund have found so many winners in the last 15 minutes of games this season, but this time it wasn’t to be as they were bereft of ideas and looked underwhelming from the very first minute. The draw means that Borussia Dortmund have now dropped points away to both promoted teams this season, as well as second bottom Hannover.

Next up for the Black and Yellows is a home game against in-form Bayer Leverkusen, where Peter Bosz will have the chance to lay waste to a second successive Dortmund season. And at the moment it looks like Borussia Dortmund’s only hope is that Marco Reus is back by then and does not miss another second of the rest of the season.