The transfer market closes on Monday at 18:00. To date, only a couple players have left Borussia Dortmund during the winter break: Jonas Hofmann to Borussia Mönchengladbach, Adnan Januzaj back to Manchester United and now Pascal Stenzel to SC Freiburg on a loan basis.

There are still no new contracts just three days before the transfer market closes. “We are relaxed, I am relaxed, everything is relaxed”, said Thomas Tuchel, who is not fond of winter transfers anyway. He had said in mid-December: “If it were up to me, it wouldn’t happen at all.”

He asked this question today: “where can you get better players from? Surely they must come from somewhere.” Instead he spoke of Moritz Leitner and Erik Durm, who has returned after a long break. He also spoke of the two youngsters Christian Pulisic and Felix Passlack: “I trust in the team and I trust in the players, who I have mentioned and have already proven their worth.”

The Coach isn’t hiding the fact that there is somewhat of a vacuum on the offensive outer positions. In Gladbach he selected Erik Durm (who incidentally is a skilled striker) as Marco Reus was out of action as a precautionary measure. Tuchel: “I enjoy being surprised by everything still working well…”