Borussia Dortmund came away from Leipzig with three points and several valuable insights. The team showed that they are more than capable of compensating for the absence of one of their most important players, while also demonstrating that they are able to plug the gap caused by personnel absences in the heart of defense. What is more, the squad proved that they remain true to their maxim of taking each game as it comes.  

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There were smiling faces all round after the hard-fought but certainly not undeserved win in Leipzig. The home side had a few good goal-scoring opportunities and certainly tested the Bundesliga's top goalkeeper this season, Roman Bürki. The BVB keeper would ultimately prove insurmountable as he kept his sixth clean sheet of the season. The Black and Yellows also had their chances to grab a second goal, but they weren't quite clinical enough to find the finishing touch to their numerous counter-attacking opportunities. As it was, Axel Witsel's thunderbolt after Lukasz Piszczek's head-on from a corner was enough to secure the 1-0 victory. 

''Seeing it go in like that, wow! Hats off to him!'' said Maximilian Philipp as he praised the goal and the man who scored it. ''It was a nice goal. I'm really happy. Leipzig were aggressive and put us under a lot of pressure, so we're really happy to come away with the three points,'' said Axel Witsel. Julian Weigl was full of praise for the midfielder, describing him as ''a really, really important player for us,'' going on to add: ''The goal will definitely give him even more confidence. We need that in our game. He's the type of player you can depend on.''

The same is true of Weigl himself, who for the second match in a row this season was forced to step into the heart of defence to plug the gap caused by the injury-enforced absences of Manuel Akanji, Dan-Axel Zagadou and Ömer Toprak. Once again, he was more than up to the task. In addition to his strength in the tackle (85 percent of duels won in the first-half), he was always assured when passing the ball against a hard-pressing Leipzig side. This proved invaluable for Dortmund's build-up play, which was particularly impressive in the opening 30 minutes of the match. Weigl managed to find his teammates from 52 of the 55 passes he played (95 percent success rate). ''The centre-back position is new to me. I'm trying hard to establish myself in the role and I'm doing my best to help out the team. I'm really happy that we kept a clean-sheet and took home the three points.''

''...we've seen that we can cope with Marco's absence''

For the first time this season, BVB were forced to cope with the absence of Marco Reus, who was involved in 25 goals (14 scored, 11 assisted) in 24 games in all competitions before the Winter break. Despite suffering a light knock in Friday's training session, the club captain travelled to Leipzig. But on the day of the match, a decision was taken to leave him out of the matchday squad, no doubt influenced by the fact that Reus was forced to miss five days of training camp due to illness. ''It was helpful for us to see we can cope with Marco's absence,'' stated Roman Bürki: ''It's obviously easier when we have him in the side, because he's a very intelligent player and is capable of making the difference.''

In Leipzig, the team got the job done without Reus. They proved how strong they are as a unit. ''We had to keep them at bay, there were phases in the match in which we were having a hard time,'' said Julian Weigl: ''Thankfully we made it through. At the end of the day we have the three points and we've made a good start. We have a brilliant team spirit in the squad, which we were able to strengthen even further during training camp.'' 

Boris Rupert