Lucien Favre bemoans Borussia Dortmund’s costly mistakes in Augsburg defeat

Borussia Dortmund were stunned by Augsburg on Friday, but Lucien Favre believes that his team did enough to get the three points.

Former Borussia Dortmund striker Ji Dong-won scored a brace to help relegation threatened Augsburg beat the Black and Yellows 2-1. The result seriously dented their title hopes, giving Bayern a chance to move joint top if they beat Borussia Monchengladbach on Saturday.

And head coach Lucien Favre believes that his team did enough to win, but were undone by individual mistakes at the back.

"“We could’ve won today. We had our opportunities to score goals but we didn’t take them. We were dominant and had many chances. Five or six great chances. But we made unnecessary mistakes. The opposition had practically no chances and yet we lost 2-1.”“We made a mistake, 1-0. But then we should’ve kept our calm and shouldn’t have made a second error.”"

Both Augsburg goals came as a result of mistakes from Borussia Dortmund in the build-up. Dan Axel Zagadou’s slip allowed Ji Dong-won to score the opener after 24 minutes. While Achraf Hakimi’s lazy sideways pass allowed the South Korean to pounce and double his side’s lead in the second half. Paco Alcacer pulled a goal back for Borussia Dortmund, but they weren’t able to find an equaliser.

Marco Reus, who made his return to the side after three weeks out, agreed with his manager, saying that Borussia Dortmund gifted Augsburg the goals and only have themselves to blame.

"“It’s an extremely bitter defeat. We gifted them the goals through two individual mistakes. Then it’s obviously difficult to come back when you’re 2-0 behind. We had three or four good opportunities but then we made the individual errors and then they obviously set up camp in defence.“We only have ourselves to blame, because you cannot give the ball away so easily and invite the Augsburg players to score goals.”"

The result consigned Borussia Dortmund to only their second defeat of the season, and goalkeeper Roman Burki believes that their performance wasn’t worthy of the league leaders.

"“We were not battle ready like Augsburg were today,” Burki said. “They were ruthless in punishing our mistakes. They scored two goals from two chances. Kobel showed some good saves, sure, but it simply wasn’t enough from us today. It was not worthy of a league leader.”“We’re currently conceding some curious goals that are actually easy to defend. For some reason, we’re not managing it right now.”"

Borussia Dortmund will have to pick themselves back up quickly as another tough test against Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League awaits them on Tuesday. After suffering a 3-0 defeat in the first leg, Der BVB are all but out of the competition but Burki is determined not to give up.

"“We’re league leaders and will still be after this match day. We will now focus on Tottenham and hope that we’ll play a good game and even progress to the next round. If we score an early goal, a lot is possible at home.”"

Borussia Dortmund’s next Bundesliga match will see them take on relegation threatened VFB Stuttgart on Saturday at the Westflenstadion.