Johannes Geis sat in front of the defense making sure nothing gets in from the middle but his prime job actually was to make use of Schalke’s pressing. When the likes of Bentaleb, Meyer and Goretzka were winning balls at ease, Schalke needed someone to make use of the loose balls. That’s where Geis came in, the former Mainz midfielder plowed in long balls from the middle in order to free Di Santo. He attempted nine(!) long passes against Dortmund, four of them were successful and two of them created an opportunity to break for the Royal Blues but Di Santo failed to capitalize on it. All of this hard work from Schalke resulted in Dortmund not being able to successfully find a linkage to Aubameyang.
We also have to give credit to Schalke’s central defenders for keeping the Dortmund attack at bay. New signing Naldo probably had his best game in a Schalke kit this season whilst Nastasic and Howedes were also crucial at defending. The trio made 12 interceptions, 18 clearances as well as winning 67% of their headed duels.
The passing map suggests a lot of passing has been done by BVB but yet they have failed to breach the Schalke backline. Also, Gotze’s getting forced on the right-hand side due to Schalke’s rigidity is worth noticing as well as Dortmund’s left sided overload and Kagawa’s impotence.
As former Dortmund player, Patrick Owomoyela pointed out while commentating for Bundesliga. Thomas Tuchel has missed a certain ingredient in his gameplay this season. He has failed to use the pace of players such as Aubameyang, Dembele, Pulisic by having an extremely conservative style of possession, much unlike their performance last season, where they thrived with possession, not just for the sake of it but using the vertical passing more often to switch the point of the attack at regular intervals.
The above pics suggests that Thomas Tuchel’s Dortmund team have been much conservative in the second season compared to the first, where they were much more direct(see forward balls). Sure the departures of Mats Hummels and Ilkay Gundogan plays a key part in this.
In any case, Dortmund needs to improve their attacking solutions if they are to challenge Bayern for the title. Meanwhile, the draw sees the Black and Yellows to the fifth spot with Cologne and Hoffenheim still having a game at their game. As for Schalke, they are in twelfth place at the moment with eight points but coach Markus Weinzierl can take a lot of positives from the game.
Images Credit: Squawka
