It was hard to tell from watching Ilkay Gündogan play in the 2-1 defeat in Cologne that here was a man playing his first Bundesliga game for 434 days.

The 23-year-old was occasionally second best in the odd tackle but he was certainly one of the better Borussia players on show at the Rhein-Energie stadium as he ended his 14 month wait for action. He was, though, anything but happy after the game.

"Yes, it’s good to be back after so long," said Gündogan who has been missing since 10 August 2013 with a back injury, but he had imagined the result of his comeback game to be very different. The international was particularly upset about the two goals conceded.

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Gündogan and Lehmann battle for the ball

BVB had the ball ahead of the first but then contrived to lose two headers, one down to Gündogan himself, thus allowing Cologne too much room in the middle. Osako was allowed to cross unchallenged for the second before Weidenfeller misjudged the flight. “Both goals were so avoidable. Yet again we contributed to our own downfall. We seem to lack concentration. We need to show some maturity, some bottle,” he told SKY tv.

But it wasn’t just at the back that BVB had problems in Cologne. Too often possession was lost when going forward and for long periods of the game they seemed incapable of hitting the target.

94 touches, 86% pass completion

Gündogan had, according to his coach and fellow player Marco Reus, done well and ought to be pleased with a pass completion rate of 86% when he was finally pulled off in the final minutes, however to register just one shot on goal from 94 touches was a little meagre.

Gündogan: “We had some really decent moments, but we really need to become more ruthless in front of goal. We just didn’t have that ability to break through and that is really very hard to accept.”