Both team’s looked like they’d rather be spending their Friday evening do almost anything else than playing football in the first 20 minutes. Similar to the Leipzig match, Dortmund struggled to find their shape—and anything resembling an outlet pass—in the early portion of the first half. Ihlas Bebou and 19-year-old academy product, Linton Maina, really dictated the early tempo in midfield for the hosts. Their tandem worked well with the two holding midfielders behind them, and caused Mahmoud Dahoud and Thomas Delaney to misplace a handful of passes to the front three of Wolf, Marco Reus and Max Philipp. Immediately it was clear that Wolf offered little to no outlet, or threat, down the right wing and Albornorz took advantage, pushing from his left-back position into the open space and creating issues for Łukasz Piszczek and BVB.

Credit to Favre, who around the 30th minute changed the rest of the half completely with one simple switch: Swapping Reus with Wolf on the right-hand side. The change, almost right away, confused the Hannover back line. Albornoz could no longer leave himself open for outlet passes from Walace, or center-back Kevin Wimmer, and this change in dynamic had a trickle-down effect into midfield. Suddenly Delaney and Dahoud were on the ball more, and Reus was punishing an over confident left-back. From this, BVB created their two best chances of the game: On both occasions, Reus drove through the half-space on the right side, taking two high-danger shots from just outside the six-yard box. The first going just wide to the left of the net. Reus, perhaps, should have picked his head up to see Wolf, open across the face of goal. The second opportunity saw Dortmund’s skipper ring one off the bar, closing the half on a relative high.

Breitenreiter responded to his team’s lack of offense, bringing on Bobby Wood for the well-marked striker, Takuma Asano, to start the final 45 minutes. Again, both sides traded possession to start the half, with neither finding a foot-hold in the oppositions final third. Dortmund’s center-back pairing did an excellent job handling the faster, more physical Wood. Diallo, especially, maintained his spacing with Witsel in the anchor role to make sure there was a quick, high-percentage outlet available to find from the back. Akanji showed his pace and aerial ability, regaining possession for his side quite often, after Hannover went to a long-ball attack.

The game came to a grinding halt around the 70th minute, with countless examples of BVB players looking around for someone to pass to and seeing stagnant, covered teammates. Hannover looked content to see out a draw, seemingly confirmed by their 132 passes in their own final third, compared to Dortmund’s 85 at their own end.

Favre decided to wait until 11 minutes from time to bring on the hyper-active Jadon Sancho, who had little opportunity to make his mark. And in the end, BVB will be frustrated not to have created a goal despite producing 0.84 xG, a number that often saw Favre’s Nice team find the net at least once last year in Ligue 1.

Dortmund’s lack of quality up front—due in large part to the performances of Wolf and Philipp—and Hannover’s rather impressive comfortability on the ball coalesced for a rather timid affair 0–0 draw at the HDI Arena.

The Eye Test

Yeah, it was a bad day at the office for Philipp and Wolf. Favre’s decision to not start Sancho looks a little bit questionable after seeing that black hole of offense on the wing that consistently derailed the BVB attack. For Philipp, it’s two poor games in a row to start the season—and two crucial games he could have used to fend off Alcácer for the starting role up top.

Was this not the perfect game for Mario Götze? Shinji Kagawa drama aside, there’s a real lack of creativity, and just plain possession-driving players right now for Dortmund. For the second game in a row they’ve been out-passed, and having three very similar players in midfield can only offer certain results.

Delaney and Dahoud’s strong play didn’t carry over from the opening match, but it didn’t necessarily look like their fault. There was a humongous gap between midfield and attack for Dortmund, and often the pairing actually did well to earn back the ball, only to look upfield and see, well, nobody. For the moment, this seems like a systematic issue, rather than a personnel problem.

Roman Bürki needs to stop hoofing the ball up the pitch. Diallo and Akanji did an excellent job of being open on multiple occasions, only to have the keeper bomb it over Philipp’s head.

The Numbers Game

Akanji and Diallo are communicating—that’s the key to Dortmund’s back line. If you watched close enough on Friday, you would have seen BVB’s center-back pairing chatting it up during stoppages. And clearly whatever they were talking about was working. The two combined for 14 clearances, 12 duels won and they just lost a single tackle against Hannover.

That gap between midfield and attack? It was real, and it killed BVB’s fluidity on Friday. The midfield’s xGBuildup (definition here) total was 0.69. For context, Thiago Alcántara of Bayern Munich averages 1.36 xGB per-90 minutes. Simply put: The midfield wasn’t transitioning the ball to attack, at all.

Favre’s teams continually out-perform their xG totals. In his last three full seasons as a manager in Mönchengladbach and Nice, his team have totaled 18.63 more goals than expected. This is usually the sign of a team with good-to-elite strikers. And right now, Dortmund don’t have that at all.

Axel Witsel continues to be the conductor. The Belgian completed 20.6% of all the passes Dortmund made. As we mentioned last week, Witsel’s defensive play needed to be better, and it was: He made three interceptions, won all three of his tackles and came out on the right side of 13 duels.

Point of Interest

How will Alcácer, the 25-year-old striker from Barcelona, help this Dortmund side? The need for … well, anything up top is obvious right now. And, to be fair, Philipp hasn’t been dreadful. He’s not getting the help he needs and is quite often isolated despite strong, tricky runs into the channels. Alcácer comes to the Westfalenstadion with a pedigree for hold-up play, creativity and a developing ability in the box.