Dortmund: True football is yellow

Liking it so far, keep it up!

Schieber overall was the best performer. He only played three games because of an injury he sustained during the Hamburger game, however it is not serious and he will be back in October.He played very well in the Gladbach game and of course the Hamburger game where his two goals gave us the win. Very well played. Also I want to give an honourable mention to Mario Gotze and Ilkay Gundogan who also played well throughout the month.
A good month but not a great month. That is of course because of the Dussledorf game. The Chelsea game was not that bad as we expected to be on the back foot. What made the Dussledorf game worse was the fact that the winning goal was a dodgy penalty. After those two games we were at home to Gladbach who were playing well at the time and I feared that we may drop more points. However the fans really pushed us over the line for that 3-0 victory. Something else that has come to my attention is Lewandowski's penalty woes. Missing two in two games is unacceptable and he will be stripped of his penalty taking duties.

Santana has been so consistent over the month and he also scored a goal which is a bit of a collectors item. We only concede 4 goals throughout the month which may not have happened if it wasn't for Santana. He has been rock solid. Maybe he could put Subotic under pressure for that regular first team spot! Also I would like to thank Lewandowski for the 8 goals he scored. Some of which were really important.
A fantastic October. Some great wins and some great performances all round. We scored 20 goals and only conceded 4, Great stuff. A little disappointed with the Mainz game. Partly because it was the most boring match I have ever seen. I would have liked to have scored a goal though. Schieber did very well on his return from injury and hopefully he can keep on scoring. Speaking of scoring I was a little disappointed with Reus this month. Only the 1 goal out of 20. That's not great.

Jose Mourinho has been sacked by Real Madrid because they were down in 11th after 12 games. Some big names were unhappy when Mourinho was in charge. This includes Ronaldo and Ozil who both requested a transfer. Luciano Spalletti has left Zenit for Real but Zenit will get £2 million compensation.

CT: Hello everybody I'm Clive Tyldsley and I hope you’re ready for the Revier derby between Schalke and Dortmund. Alongside me is Andy Townsend
AT: Thanks Clive. I’m looking forward to this one. Hopefully Sh- Sh –Schoolke, Is that how you say it? Will be able to give Dortmund a game.
CT: It’s pronounced Sh-al-ke Andy.
AT: Really, well I’ve never heard of them which explains why you people can’t pronounce it.
CT: They’re in the Champions league Andy.
At: Oh.
CT: Anyway lets take a look at some of Dortmund’s key players. One of them is Nuri Sahin, who is on loan from Real Madrid and
AT: I think you’ll find he’s on loan from Liverpool.
CT: sigh, here are the stating lineups.

Schalke: Hilderbrand, Fuchs, Howedes, Matip, Uchida, Jones, Neudstadter, Farfan, Afellay, Draxler, Huntelaar.

Dortmund: Weidenfeller, Schmelzer, Subotic, Santana, Piszczek, Bender, Gundogan, Sahin, Schieber, Lewandowski, Reus

Kick off

56th minute:
CT: Reus may hit this, he’s perfectly capable of scoring from there.
AT: No, it’s too far out Clive.
CT: Reus hits it anyway and it cannons back of the crossbar! The danger is still no clear and here comes Felipe SANTANAAAAAAAA! He nods the ball in from 6 yards. He was quicker and hungrier than Uchida and he makes it 1-0 to Dortmund.
AT: Wait I thought Schalke had scored, their the ones that wear Yellow right ?
CT: I repeat it’s 1-0 to DORTMUND!!!!!!!!

68th minute:
CT: Farfan has loads of time on the right handside but decides to cross it with his left, and it’s very deep. No one’s marking Draxler who squeezes it in from the tight angle to make it 1-1.
AT: Great finish from Draxler, a veteran of the game.
CT: He’s 18 years old.
AT: He can still be a veteran.

78th minute:
CT: Gotze has the ball near the corner flag. He lays it back to Schmelzer who floats it over to the back post. Kuba receives the ball and is tackled by the POST! But now it falls to LEWANDOWSKI. He takes the lead back.1-2 to Dortmund but there’s still 10 minutes on the clock.
AT: I’m not going to say anything.

Full time: CT: Dortmund deserve their win. They were the better of the two sides, they created more chances and they eventually put them away.

Ha, Andy Townsend is such an idiot!

Preview

Both teams need to win here just to keep up with each other. Bayern still have not lost a game in the Bundesliga. Dortmund have lost only the one game against Dussledorf. Despite this Dortmund are 1 point ahead of Bayern. That is because Bayern have drawn a lot more games than Borussia.
Who is going to cause problems for each other. Well Bayerns top goalscore has been left out of the starting lineup today. Claudio Pizzaro is sitting on the bench due to Mario Gomez's return to fitness. Dortmund also have the 2 men who have the same amount of goals. Robert Lewandowski and Marco Reus. Lewandowski with his ariel prowess and Reus with his electric pace can and will give Bayern's defence something to think about.

Lineups

Bayern Munich : Neuer, Alaba, Badstuber, Dante, Lahm, Schwiensteiger, Martinez, Kroos, Ribery, Shaqiri, Gomez

Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller, Schmelzer, Hummels, Subotic, Piszczek, Bender, Sahin, Grosskreutz, Gotze, Reus, Lewandowski


8th minute : Kroos has the ball on the half way line. He tries to loft it over the defence to Mario Gomez, but Schmelzer will surely head it and OH NO he's missed it and Gomez is through. Gomez with the chance and GOMEZ with the goal. He cooly slots it past Weidenfeller and Bayern have the lead after 8 minutes.

18th minute: Ribery is in a lot of space on the left handside. Bemder goesto close but he gets the cross in. The ball bounces off of Hummels and it falls to GOMEZ. He guides it into the far corner. 2-0.

22nd minute: Ribery on the edge of the area with his back to goal, has no where to go. But wait there goes Alaba, where is Reus? Alaba bears down on goal and Alaba.....SCORES. 3-0. Where on earth was Reus. He had to track Alaba and this is the consequence.

49th minute: Ribery will take the free kick but it's right by the corner flag so he must cross it. He does it goes towards the penalty area and Badstuber gets up the highest and the ball flies into the net. What a powerful header from Badstuber. 4-0. What has happened to Dortmund?

61st minute: Pisczcek with the throw deep in the Bayern half. Gosskreuz lays it back to Piszczek .He smashes it into the 6 yard box and Lewandowski climbs above Dante and nods it into the corner. 4-1. Dortmund get one back but I imagine it will only be a consolation goal.

64th minute: The corner is headed away by Subotic but only as far as Ribery. Ribery goes out wide to Schweinsteiger. He floats it to the back post with the first time cross, and Muller is unmarked. Muller makes it 5-1.


Q: Lars, your team just could not cope with Bayern's attack today. Are you going to have to do some more defensive work?
I think so. Marking from set pieces and open play was poor today. 3 of their goals came from crosses into the box that we just could not deal with. The other 2 goals were individual mistakes. Schmelzer just misjudged the flight of the ball. It was unlucky for him. Reus on the other hand needs to work on tracking back. When he plays on the wings, he must make sure that he comes back. That is something we will defenitely be working on in the coming days.

Tough defeat to Bayern, but surely you can bounce back!

Felipe Santana has for the second time in a row won the player of the month. Some rock solid performances against Chelsea and Schalke earned him the award. The Schalke game also came with a very important goal for him, not to mention his defensive ability. Therefore Santana is the official player of the month. An honourable mention goes out to Sven Bender who also played very well, but not as well as Santana.


A very good month turned sour by the embarrassing 5-1 defeat to title rival's Bayern Munich. The 1-1 draw to Bremen was a little disappointing, however they are flying high in 3rd.( I say that but they are 17 points off of us and Bayern). Despite the few negatives in the league, we managed to qualify for the last 16 of the Champions league after the win over Copenhagen. Us and Chelsea were miles ahead of the other two with them leading. That is why are match with them was pretty relaxed. I wonder who we get in the next round.

Other than the loss to Bayern, great month

I agree with LJ.

Sven Bender wins the player of the month award for December. This came around because of his 2 man of the match performances and his very important goal against Mainz. However it is not his attacking that has won him the award. We have been playing a very attacking formation and it is Bender's job to sit back and win the ball. He has done that superbly.


A great month 4 out of 5 games were wins and the loss doesn't matter as we were already through to the knockout stages. Speaking of the knockout stages, we have been drawn against Juventus. It's gonna be tough but I think we can prevail. The draw has also given us a replay of last years final. With Bayern still let to lose and Chelsea in 2nd place in the premier I wonder who will win. Anyway it's transfer time soon and we may be able to bring in some new players.

Good month again, you should be able to win the title! As for the Olympiakos game, well, at least Stam will be happy!

Q: Lars the ransfer window is a week old and you have done nothing up to this point. Why is that?

Lars: Well actually you're wrong. We are happy to announce the signing of Artur Boka on a free transfer from Stuttgart. He is great player, I have massive respect for him and I look forward to working with him. Obviously he won't arrive at the club until the summer but that is something we will just have to accept.

Q: No offense but why would you sign Boka? If he's not good enough for Stuttgart what makes you think he'll be right for you?

Lars: Well we have signed him as a back up left back. We currently only have one player who is a natural Left back, others can play there but they are not comfortable with it. Therefore if Schmelzer gets injured we will be in quite a bit of trouble. Also I picked him because A: He cost nothing and B: I think he is underrated by many. I have seen him play for Ivory Coast and Stuttgart and I have been very impressed. He has a lot of speed and stamina. He could run up and down the pitch all day. The attacking side of his game is fantastic which could prove very useful next season.

Q: Again on transfers, our sources tell us that Sebastian Kehl has handed in a transfer request. If this is true will you allow him to leave?

Lars: Sebastian is a model pro and has bin fantastic for this club. However he has decided that he wants a new challenge. I am not going to stand in his way and I would like to say thank you to him on behalf of Borussia Dortmund. I hope he is successful at his new club and good luck to him.

Nice signing, he will be decent back-up.

Robert Lewandowski scored 3 in 3 in January. A great record which helped his bid to be the top scorer in the Bundesliga. It was not just his goals that pleased me but his hold up play and his ability to win the ball in the air and lay it off to a team mate.Also a good month for Schieber and Reus.


A good month cut short by the winter break. Three fantastic wins, especially the 2-1 win away at Wolfsburg who are a strong side. There is however one downside to this month. If you heard my interview last week you would know that the injury to Schmelzer could put our title hopes in Jeopardy. Schmelzer is our only left back and is now out for 1 month. Who is going to play there I am yet to decide but it will probably be Piszczek.In other news Mourinho has gone back to Inter Milan after they sacked their manager. That should be interesting.