After two completely different halves, Borussia Dortmund took three points from Wolfsburg. VfL captain Maximilian Arnold relativized the significance, while the BVB players were not satisfied with 6th place either.
Julian Brandt was right. “A 3-0 lead should give you enough support to see out the game with confidence,” said the midfielder on DAZN, after his Dortmund team had just failed to see out the game with confidence.
Only when they were equal in number, then outnumbered, did Wolfsburg pressurize BVB and have chances to actually take a point.
“Largely offline” was how Borussia was in this phase of the game, criticized Brandt: ‘You have to be able to criticize us for that. That’s not good, we have to play more confidently, we have to grow up.’ That is precisely why BVB is not in second, third or fourth place in the table, but only in sixth.
Beier is looking for the reset button
His teammate Maximilian Beier, who was directly involved in two black-and-yellow goals, like Brandt, could not find much positive in this ranking. “We’re trying to find a reset in the new year and play better,” said the striker: “Being sixth can’t be our aspiration.”
And it was this sixth place that was almost in jeopardy in the closing stages. If, for example, Waldemar Antons’ unintentional handball in the 72nd minute had been penalized – or if the Wolves had taken more risks even earlier.
“It took us a few minutes to realize that we could go for it,” Lukas Nmecha admitted. The 26-year-old had come on at half-time and won a red card against Pascal Groß – but he still couldn’t be satisfied with his performance.
“Don’t always assume that the wind will push us back again”
“It’s going to be difficult to sleep tonight,” confessed the Wolfsburg player in view of the missed big chance in the 49th minute, but: “In time, I’ll score those too.”
His captain, on the other hand, was not one to beat around the bush on this Sunday. “You can’t always concede three goals and assume that Jonas Wind will blow us back,” said Maximilian Arnold, who recognized a ‘deserved defeat’. ‘The VfL acted far too slowly, pushed far too slowly’: ‘We sometimes relied too much on each other.’
But when assessing the defeat, he chose a different perspective – and recalled the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg. “It’s very difficult to concentrate on football because there are much more important things,” said Arnold: “Whether we won or lost is completely irrelevant.”
