Lucien Favre: Difficult to accept Augsburg defeat for Borussia Dortmund

Lucien Favre bemoaned Borussia Dortmund’s lack of patience and precision during their 2-0 defeat to FC Augsburg.

Borussia Dortmund were stunned by FC Augsburg on Saturday, suffering a 2-0 defeat in a game they should have won rather comfortably. Despite enjoying nearly 80% of possession, the Black and Yellows failed to break down the resilient Augsburg defence. And goals from Felix Uduokhai and Daniel Caligiuri either side of half time gave the home side a well earned win over the title hopefuls.

Speaking after Borussia Dortmund’s first defeat of the new season, head coach Lucien Favre wasn’t best pleased with his side’s performance, especially in attack.

"“I am very disappointed. It is difficult to accept this defeat. We dominated the game completely, had almost 80% possession, but sometimes that does not get you much. We started very well but we weren’t precise enough, we played hastily.”"

Borussia Dortmund started the game on the front foot and had three chances to take the lead in the opening ten minutes alone. But after Augsburg scored the first goal, Der BVB folded very quickly and looked like a shadow of the team that beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-0 just last weekend. The Swiss tactician believes that his side played too hastily and lacked patience against a well drilled Augsburg side.

"“Augsburg defended really well. We have to have more patience and play more over the wings, then we would have had more chances through the centre. We didn’t play enough diagonally. We are very disappointed that we lost here. We still have a lot of work to do.”"

Defender Mats Hummels thought that despite the defeat, Borussia Dortmund actually played well in many regards. But failure to make their chances count prevented them from taking home the three points. “We actually played well in many regards,” Hummels said. “We managed to find space behind the midfield, but we weren’t able to create enough chances from these situations. We didn’t make the most of the opportunities we had. I definitely don’t think we had fewer dangerous chances than Augsburg.”

While Manuel Akanji said that Borussia Dortmund must do better on both ends of the pitch. “We had a hard time here last year too. But we still managed to win. It is sometimes like this and sometimes like that. But of course, we have to do better. In general, we weren’t good enough in both attack and defence today.”

Borussia Dortmund must pick themselves up quickly from this defeat, with another trip to Bavaria awaiting them on Wednesday, as they go up against an in-form Bayern Munich side in the DFL Supercup.