The team have made consistent progress over the course of the past few games, said Roman Bürki in a chat with media representatives. The Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper also spoke about Axel Witsel's injury and looked ahead to the Mainz match.

Roman Bürki on the current status of the team:
"We have certainly made progress in terms of our system and our positional play in recent days and weeks. We have clear responsibilities. Everybody knows what he is supposed to be doing. The whole atmosphere on the pitch and in the team is very important for us too. It's a little bit livelier. We've communicated a lot during our recent matches, injected some emotion. Emre was a machine after his substitution in Leipzig, running around and throwing himself into the challenges. That's exactly what we need."

…January as a defining month:
"We should assess each match. We've made progress after every game to date. We played very well throughout the second half in Leipzig, did not give much away and started scoring goals with some beautiful football again. That was missing in the games beforehand. We're consistently taking a step forward. That starts in training. We also want to win there, and you see the result at the end of the week."

…the match against Mainz:
"At the moment, we're having fewer difficulties in the top matches than we are against opponents that sit deep and take a physical approach. It'll be a difficult game. We need to prepare ourselves for the fact that they will play defensively, leave the ball to us and be compact at the back. We'll need to find solutions for that. It's down to the coaching staff and our team to find the gaps and develop the appropriate strategy." 

…the objectives come the end of the season:
"We had a weaker spell. It feels as though we're on the up again now. We need to achieve direct qualification for the Champions League. Anything else would be a disappointment. We've now seen that every opponent is beatable. If we play our game on the pitch, we have a chance of beating our opponents in any match. We're trying to concentrate on ourselves again, to keep taking steps forward and to win our matches."

…the consistency of the performances:
"Erling is in very good form and you can see Jadon is enjoying himself again. He's having fun scoring goals again. Gio is working hard for the team. There are many things that used to be there but got lost at some point along the way and are now coming back to us. We're playing good football. We must not throw our plan out of the window if a half doesn't go as well as we'd like it to here and there. We need to believe in our plan and everyone must fulfil his responsibility." 

…the injury to Axel Witsel:
"That's a bitter blow. He's been an important player for us with his personality and his performances. We've already wished him all the very best and we hope that he can return to action on the pitch more quickly than expected. He speaks a lot of languages and so that makes him an important character in the changing rooms, as he can listen to the players who don't speak English or German and chat with them."

Transcribed by Christina Reinke