After coming off of yet another dismal result on the weekend against Augsburg in the Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund face what has become an even more pivotal clash in the DFB Pokal this week against VFL Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg, like Augsburg, is not in the best possible form, with the club's only win recently coming in a 3-1 win against VFL Bochum in early October.
The game itself has taken on far greater meaning than before, as Dortmund’s current position in the league and recent heavy loss to Real Madrid indicates that their best chance of silverware for the season would indeed be Germany’s cup competition. Unfortunately for Dortmund, they go into this game not only with a slew of injuries but also with key players out of form.
Attacking midfield in particular has become a bit of a crisis position for Dortmund. Injuries to Gio Reyna and Marcel Sabitzer mean that there is no nailed-on first-team backup to Julian Brandt, and with Pascal Groß likely otherwise occupied playing the 6 or even possibly right back due to the current injury list, Brandt is well and truly on his own there barring the club calling up some of their younger talents from the academy or the under-23s.
Brandt’s current form also doesn’t help the matter, as the player hasn’t been putting in the same scintillating performances we saw last season. Much of Brandt's play has reverted to the lethargic version of himself we saw over the course of stints in previous seasons. His creative numbers have dropped significantly. The Augsburg game is a prime example of this pendulum shift, with Brandt only creating one chance, having zero shots on target and a pass accuracy of below 80% (78%).
These numbers indicate that Brandt had a sub-par impact on the game, against an opponent Dortmund should have dominated. Instead, we saw Brandt become a bystander once again at a time when he is one of the more senior players of the squad, and the club is doing quite a bit to make him one of it’s main faces.
Performances such as this from Brandt could be the result of two main factors - match fatigue and lack of competition or pressure for the attacking midfield position. As we’ve already mentioned, Brandt is the sole senior player available to play at the 10 if we take injuries and necessity elsewhere into account. This begs the question then, what do Dortmund do about this conundrum?
The answer could simply be to at times play without an attacking midfielder altogether to allow Brandt a break. Playing with a front two has been discussed at length, and could possibly be implemented especially against Wolfsburg. Against Augsburg, we saw Serhou Guirassy isolated up front at times which, considering the threat he’s shown he’s capable of posing is damning in terms of Dortmund’s efforts to win games. Putting Maximilian Beier up front with him could give him the extra support he’s lacking with Brandt’s current form being taken into account. When he came on vs Augsburg as well as Madrid, he showed an impetus to score and came close in the latter game, which makes me think we’re getting close to seeing him break his goalless streak sometime soon.
The point in all this isn’t to say Brandt should be dropped indefinitely, or even not feature against Wolfsburg; it is more so to indicate that perhaps due to the lack of additional options to both compete for a position or provide relief, we are seeing a more haggard version of Brandt prone to making more mistakes than he did last season. The club still had Marco Reus at the club at the time, who was always going to put the pressure on if he performed well and was able to provide relief when necessary. Without that, we’ve witnessed the workings of a player in Brandt who’s been left stranded and bereft of backup in his position, which means that additional solutions need to be considered, even if it means being more flexible with the attacking setup for Dortmund.