Nuri Şahin: Borussia Dortmund to improve in terms of taking chances from crosses

For quite a few seasons now, Borussia Dortmund has been known as a team that struggles with crossing the ball into the box from open play and then converting chances from these situations. In fact, there has been a lot of discussion about how the club had not done enough of this when they had strikers up top like Anthony Modeste or Niklas Füllkrug, who very much fed off of such opportunities at previous clubs.

Ironically enough, despite not fielding a proper target man up top this season, mainly due to Serhou Gurassy’s injury lay-off, the club has seen an uptick of crosses into the box. In Dortmund’s game against Frankfurt, for example, Dortmund put in 18 crosses, none of which really affected the match.

Despite not fielding a natural striker for most of the match, head coach Nuri Şahin has indicated (per RN) that this factor of Dortmund’s game is something that the players have been focusing on in training under his tutelage:

"It’s already good that we’re getting crosses into the box. The game obviously changes with a player like Serhou. When he’s there, it’s a completely different impact."

- Nuri Şahin

This training is clearly in anticipation of Guidassy’s return, and the fact that Dortmund was trying to create chances in this vein is positive, as Şahin highlights. Dortmund’s coach was not one for excuses, however, stating that it’s not just the striker's job to get on the end of such plays:

"Even if you don’t have a target player, the half-space players and the far-side wingers need to get into the box; that’s something we’re working on. It’s about box occupation, short and deep runs, all of that plays a role. We’re training it, but it’s clear that we’re not at the end of our development yet. I’ve only had the guys together for a few weeks, and everything has to settle in. We want to develop to the point where we can display as much dominance as possible."

- Nuri Şahin

Şahin’s goal seems to be to ensure that even if a player like Guirassy, once fit, is on the pitch, he is not the only threat from these situations and that Dortmund’s other attackers are there to take advantage of defensive spills or deflections, which makes complete sense. All in all, Şahin’s approach is likely to train the team to feed off of the strength of a player like Guirassy, without isolating him as the only option in a situation where the team is trying to feed him in the box.