Borussia Dortmund have now gone four games without a win in the Bundesliga. In the table, they now lie eight points behind Bayern Munich, who sit atop. Despite this, there are positives to take from the Ruhr Derby, which ended 0-0.

Looking back at the points haul from October does not make for easy reading. After the victory over Freiburg a good four weeks ago, BVB graced second spot in the table with 12 points. Four league fixtures later, and that total has had only three points added to it. Should Cologne FC defeat Hamburg in Sunday's clash, BVB will occupy sixth place. It would, however, be premature to talk of a crisis. "We are not going through a crisis", stressed Roman Bürki, among others, after the game against Schalke. "Our team is young and we have many injured players currently", was the explanation offered by him for the mild slump of the last few weeks.

"We must continue to improve"

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His assessment is realistic. Up to ten squad members have been missing at certain times for the Black and Yellows in the last few weeks, and the wounded are exiting sick-bay incrementally. Six important players were still absent on Saturday, namely, Gonzalo Castro, Marcel Schmelzer, Sven Bender, Marco Reus, Neven Subotic and Erik Durm. Added to that, world champion Andre Schürrle and European champion Raphael Guerreiro could only be deployed for relatively short times after recently recovering from their ailments. Furthermore, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had to grit his teeth and play through having taken a nasty knock or two from the recent cup-tie.

Not the best conditions to find oneself in then when hoping to get a run going in the league, nor when going up against one's highly motivated bête noire in the Ruhr Derby, notwithstanding the fact that "a win is our only goal in this fixture", as Bürki went on record as saying. It is the youthful, highly gifted players who are momentarily charged with taking charge. It is only logical that they cannot do that every match, and it would be unreasonable to hold this against the young guard, comprised of such players as Felix Passlack, Christian Pulisic or Ousman Dembélé. "There was a lack of aggression in front of goal against Schalke", said the young Frenchman. He himself had passed up Borussia's best chance of the match as he hit the crossbar from a short distance out, though the ball was in no way an easy one to work. "We must continue to improve", added Dembélé. 

"We will emerge from this stronger"

His appraisal put him on the same wavelength as his team colleague Bürki, as well as Matthias Ginter, who opined that "we have to focus on our personal strengths again and concentrate on getting the basics right". The defender was also able to take positives from the game, though: "Yes, we are lagging behind a bit in the table, but I do not think it is a bad thing for our young team to have to go through such phases. We will emerge from this stronger."

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There are indeed positives to take from the game against Schalke. "We kept a clean sheet. That's something we should take from this", said Roman Bürki, for example. "We played a lot better in the second half, held our positions better, and consequently could raise the tempo, while we hardly made any mistakes at the back", read Thomas Tuchel's analysis. "I am very satisfied with our performance in the second half."

Soon we will be able to choose from a full complement

All of this should not be forgotten as the club prepares for its forthcoming challenges, on Wednesday against Lisbon in the UEFA Champions League and next Saturday against Hamburger SV, both of which are tricky games: "It will not be simple against Lisbon, we saw that in the first leg", noted Ginter. "But we showed our qualities there too. For that reason, I am confident." Hamburg, after a poor opening to their season, are also likely to go into this game against BVB highly motivated, in the quest for invaluable points.

The next international break is then scheduled after these two fixtures. Time perhaps, to finally heal those wounds and injuries. "I hope that some of those affected by injury will soon be fit again. Then we will be able to choose from a full complement", said Roman Bürki. Maybe then, when the majority of Borussia Dortmund's players are fit and in form, will we be able to herald the true start to the season...
Dennis-Julian Gottschlich