At the press conference following BVB’s no score draw at Hertha BSC, coach Thomas Tuchel analysed pointedly why Borussia had been unable to come away from the game as victors.  Thomas Tuchel on…

…getting into the game at Hertha: “It took a while until we had acclimatised to the conditions there. This is not meant as an excuse, but the pitch was not in a great way. That doesn’t make playing football easy or fun, and it costs you energy in an attack when turning. It also took a long time for us to find our rhythm when passing and to create space in which we could up the tempo of the game in order to try and get into the opposition 18-yard box, given their defence was so compact and fierce in executing their job. Furthermore, we required time to work out how to respond to Hertha’s aggression and steeliness appropriately.  Things started to click towards the end of the first half. We completely dominated in the second half. We managed to create a couple of dangerous plays, but we simply weren’t at the races, either as a team or as individuals, and so couldn’t make things turn in our favour. Given that, 0-0 is OK.”

…Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang being substituted: “His goals were missed today. I don’t usually like to take him off, but I didn’t get the feeling it was going to be his day. I mean, you can wait for him to make a decisive contribution, but we were unable to supply him with much today. He didn’t have much to feed off.”

…the jittery end to the match: “I had hoped that we would manage to score, perhaps from distance. There was nothing there to suggest that we were satisfied with 0-0. We played to win until the end, gave everything, but our form and self-confidence were lacking, meaning we couldn’t turn the game in our favour.”

…the omission of Shinji Kagawa: “I can only name 16 players in my match-day squad. There's no more to it than that.”

…Hertha's Defensive set-up: “It speaks in our favour that we were, until now, able to find a way to break down many different kinds of defence and score. Against deep-lying defences too. It was very, very difficult against Hertha. We needed to stay patient and pass quickly. For that, two more things are required: a ball, and a good field. In no way did we have the second of those two things.”