In hindsight, Dortmund had a reasonably succesful year: second in the Bundesliga, past group stage in CL, all good. Still, that finish must sting! They were 9 points clear of Bayern, and still couldn’t finish them. Judging by the transfer activities, that did indeed sting and they are now openly challenging Bayern. They had many key transfers done early and added Hummels, Nico Schulz, Brandt, Thorgan Hazard as potential key players and Mateu Morey, Balerdi, and Gomey as promising youngsters. Well done!

The squad is now very large, they are still looking to offload a couple of players (Schürrle, Kagawa, Toprak etc.) but will not lose any players they do not want to lose (The one exception might be Diallo who left for PSG). The starting 11 will be difficult to predict, there are many options for Favre.

I see Hummels, Delaney, Witsel, Reus as the undisputed axis. Around them, there are great options in all parts of the pitch: central defense (Akanji, Weigl, Zagadou); left back (Schulz, Schmelzer), right back (Hakimi, Piszczek, Morey), defensive midfield (Dahoud, Weigl, Guerrero), offensive midfield (Sancho, Brandt, Götze, Bruun Larsen, Wolf, Hazard), striker (Alcacer, Götze, Maxi Philipp). This gives Favre a lot of flexibility and especially speed, even more than last year.

What might be the only problem is a preceived lack of tactical flexibility and pragmatism. Last season everything was great when Dortmund could push through their fluid attacking game. In games where this did not work, there was not really a pragmatic approach to at least secure the draw or have some alternative means of success. With more top-level personell at his disposal, I am very curious if Favre will show such a “Plan B”. If he manages that, I can see BVB finally lifting the Meisterschale again.

Title odds: 5:1

Relegation odds: 501:1

Final expected finish: 1

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