Poor performance and a win. Good performance and a defeat. Poor performance and a draw. The story of BVB's last three matches in brief. Ahead of the trip to Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, the league leader's coach fielded more questions on his side's form than its formation.

 

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"We're not producing the performances we were before. I'm trying to approach that analytically. I don't believe it's helpful for the players to take an emotional approach. We have a clear style of play, and that's how we need to start playing again," explained a calm and jovial Peter Bosz on Friday lunchtime. Of the last two games (3-2 loss to Leipzig, 1-1 draw in Nicosia), he said: "The fact the results are not as good as they were at the start of the season is disappointing for the players too." Now they need "a good result to turn the feeling around. That's why we need to win in Frankfurt."

When asked whether he had a "Plan B", Bosz, who has always lined his team up in a 4-3-3 formation, gave a confident and relaxed answer: "We need to try to implement Plan A very well. That's the most important thing." Nonetheless, the coach assured: "We analyse the game. We analyse the players. We analyse ourselves. But we do that when we win as well. We look at what we have to improve."

After eight games this season, Eintracht Frankfurt have as many points on the board as they picked up in the entire second half of the 2016/17 season. "Frankfurt have a good team," emphasised Bosz, who knows three of the ten outfield players likely to start for the Eagles (Willems, de Guzman, Haller) from his time in the Netherlands. He continued: "We do need to keep an eye on Frankfurt, but what we do ourselves is even more important. If we play well, then we have control of the match. If the tempo drops down, it becomes easier for the opponent to defend."
Boris Rupert