Borussia Dortmund's match away at Bayer Leverkusen was hardly a great footballing spectacle. Chances were few and far between, with both teams managing a grand total of four between them, three for Bayer and just one for BVB. Instead there were plenty of challenges, with 342 setting the Bundesliga record for the season, and for Dortmund at least a host of passes that went astray. Nevertheless the goalless draw was a first step in the right direction following a first half of the season that had gone badly astray.

Borussia at last managed to demonstrate a certain presence on the pitch, they looked confident in going about their task to gain points as they struggle to climb out of the relegation zone. “It wasn't perfect but we did what was necessary and have taken a good first step to kick off the second half of the season,” coach Jürgen Klopp explained, pointing out that “you couldn't talk about a relegation battle and demand champagne football.”

“The football was a little lacking”

“I could have told people before the game that it wouldn't be a great footballing feast. We'll leave the lovely football to the other teams for now. We had a plan and we stuck to it,” said Nuri Sahin.

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Ciro Immobile and Marco Reus after the 0-0 draw at BayArena.

“It was a very combative match in which the football was a little lacking. What we need above all at the moment is to gain points and we did that,” was how Kevin Kampl summed up the match on his BVB debut. The Slovenian midfielder had 52 touches, won 58% of his tackles, managed 36 sprints and covered a total of 12.2 km on the pitch. Klopp said, “For his first match that was pretty impressive. Confident, sharp, showed good skill.”

BVB put on a solid defensive performance against Leverkusen with the only real moments of danger coming in the 39th and 75th minutes when Castro twice came close but failed to convert his chances. In the first half it was Mats Hummels who came to the rescue of his goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller with a headed goalline clearance, while in the second half the 27-year-old put his lob over the crossbar. Ciro Immobile wasted a good chance to give Dortmund the lead just after the break when his shot from an acute angle was saved by Bernd Leno.

Should Toprak's challenge against Immobile have been a penalty?

And who knows how the match would have turned out if on 13 minutes referee Knut Kircher had seen that Bayer keeper Leno handled the ball outside the penalty area and given a free kick... Or if Toprak's challenge on Immobile (63) had been judged a penalty...

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Matthias Ginter against Stefan Kießling.

“You could have given a penalty because he forgets to take his hand away. But I don't want to make a big deal of it, because it wasn't a clear-cut penalty,” said Klopp. To Knut Kircher he even said, “The ref did a good job on the whole, and both sides stayed within the limits.”

After gaining a point in Leverkusen, which actually meant BVB slipped one place to bottom of the table, (Klopp: “That doesn't bother me. We gained a good point.”), all eyes turned to Wednesday's home game against Augsburg. “We can build on our defensive performance, but offensively we have to be a bit more cutting,” thinks Matthias Ginter. Nuri Sahin added, “Lots of things went well but there's lots of room for improvement against Augsburg.”

Kevin Kampl looking forward to home debut

Kevin Kampl is particularly looking forward to making his debut in the Signal Iduna Park. “Up to now I've only been there as a spectator, which was an amazing feeling. But now to be able to run out on the pitch as a player is great.” His approach: “We can play freely. We shouldn't be too concerned about our league position but just concentrate on playing football.”