Borussia Dortmund end of season review: Lucien Favre

A roller coaster of a season

Lucien Favre and Borussia Dortmund started the season aiming to take the fight to Bayern Munich for the Bundesliga title. After an encouraging start, things went awry very quickly, as poor defending and a lack of discipline saw the Black and Yellows drop points in games they should have won comfortably.

For much of the first half of the season, Favre did not seem to have any idea on how to fix the defence and give the team more stability. His stubbornness did not help, as poor performers kept getting picked, and some of the others couldn’t even get a look in.

Things turned around slightly in November, when Lucien Favre finally changed the system to switch to a back three. That led to markedly improved displays, and a much more organised defence.

Up until the defeat to Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund had a near perfect second half of the season. For much of the rückrunde, Lucien Favre’s side defended well as a team, played with a lot more consistency, and looked sharper going forward.

Over the course of the season, Favre led Borussia Dortmund to some impressive wins, such as against Inter Milan, Paris St. Germain, Borussia Mönchengladbach and RB Leipzig. But there were also some poor, avoidable results which hurt the team’s cause.