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Borussia Dortmund struggling to shake off away blues

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Nuri Şahin's Borussia Dortmund slumped to their fourth consecutive away defeat in the Bundesliga at Mainz on Matchday 10, while they remain perfect at home. What has gone wrong on the road for the Black and Yellows, and where could it all be put right?

It has been a season of one glaring contrast for Dortmund. They boast an incredible 100 percent record after five league games at home in front of their famed Yellow Wall in 2024/25. They are the only team in the division yet to drop a single point on their own patch. 

Across all competitions, last season’s UEFA Champions League runners-up have actually won all seven at the Signal Iduna Park. Add in the end of last season and it’s even 10 straight wins.

Dortmund’s home results in 2024/25:

Watch: Dortmund 2-1 Leipzig – highlights 

And yet they have not taken a single away win so far in the Bundesliga, earning just one point from five (only bottom side Bochum have a worse record), and have lost a miserable six matches in a row on their travels in all competitions.

That’s a kind of run not seen at BVB since the middle of the 2006/07 season, which spanned the tenures of Bert van Marwijk, Jürgen Röber and Thomas Doll.

Dortmund’s away results in 2024/25:

Watch: Mainz 3-1 Dortmund – highlights

The most recent away defeat in Mainz – a side they have found tough to beat in general in past years but who also hadn’t won at home yet this season – was perhaps understandable in isolation, especially considering they played an hour with 10 men after Emre Can was sent off. But it actually continued a number of worrying trends.

It was the third red card shown to a Borussia player this Bundesliga campaign – the most of any club – and all three have come in away games. So, can we put some of those results down to ill-discipline?

Not really, beyond Can’s dismissal. Nico Schlotterbeck was sent off in the 73rd minute away at Werder Bremen on Matchday 2 in a goalless draw – Dortmund’s only away point so far. And in the Matchday 8 loss at Augsburg, Almugera Kabar was shown his second yellow in the 99th minute.

Watch: Augsburg 2-1 Dortmund – highlights 

So, what’s it all coming down to?

“We conceded the goals from nothing really, which is happening a lot this season,” bemoaned Julian Brandt after the defeat in Augsburg.

“What has been a real theme at the moment, or the entire season rather, is that we have to do an unbelievable amount of work to score a goal and that our opponents feel like they have to work much less hard to score against us,” the forward added.

Let’s break down those statements based on the stats.

Are Dortmund having to work extra hard to score their goals?

At home, the answer is not really. They are averaging just under 19 shots per Bundesliga game this season at Signal Iduna Park, netting 14 goals in five matches to outscore their xG of 12.89. There was also the seven they put past Scottish champions Celtic on one night.

Away from home, the shot count drops substantially to slightly under eight per game and their xG is slashed to 4.58, which shows an underperformance – but not by much – in front of goal with only four scored on their travels. And they have also scored two in Madrid and three at Club Brugge.

Watch: Julian Brandt on Dortmund's poor away form

What about opponents having to work much less to get their goals?

Well, at home, BVB have conceded six times, with the visiting teams averaging 9.2 shots per game. A combined xGA of 6.11 suggests that Die Schwarzgelben have actually been breached (very slightly) less than expected on home soil. On the road, though, where Şahin’s men face an average of 12.2 shots, they have let in 12 goals from an xG of 8.27. That is a substantial difference.

That xGA away from home in fact puts Borussia ninth in the division for the fewest goals opponents should have scored. But when it comes to opposition shot efficiency, which is the difference between goals scored and xG, Dortmund come out second worst away from home at +3.73, only ahead of Augsburg (+4.14). That means only Augsburg have let in a greater number of goals more than expected on their travels, and backs up Brandt’s comments to an extent.

It can’t all boil down to home teams taking a few more chances, though, can it?

A look at the season as a whole suggests – as is normal – that teams tend to do better at home. Out of 90 fixtures so far, there have been 36 home wins to 30 for away teams (plus 24 draws). But that is not a huge difference in reality and only points towards a slight advantage for home sides.

Dortmund fit that model of home teams doing better, but such a gulf in contrast between their form according to location is not reflective of what is a more marginal difference division-wide.

You can also dig deeper into BVB’s numbers this term, where there are a few more red flags of discrepancies.

For example, Dortmund’s average possession drops from 64 percent at home to 57 percent on the road – perhaps amazingly, that is still second highest in the division behind Bayern Munich – while their passing accuracy goes from 91 percent down to 86 percent (still second only to Bayern).

Their running stats are also vastly different, covering an average of 112.5 kilometres per home game but only 106.2 kilometres when away – and three red cards cannot justify such a discrepancy. You see the same in their duels, where they win 51 percent at home but lose the majority on the road (49 percent).

Watch: Şahin: "We have to defend better" 

“What about their injury crisis?!” We hear you cry. Yes, Dortmund have had awful luck with the number of players they’ve had sidelined this season, with Şahin rarely able to field what he would see as his first-choice XI. But an injury crisis isn’t worse away from home than it is when playing on your own patch.

The hope will be that the injury list will at least ease before the next away assignments and allow Şahin greater flexibility to plan and react once more. Fans will be relieved that their next two Bundesliga fixtures are at home to Freiburg and Bayern, although the latter are the Bundesliga’s best away side and a huge challenge to their perfect home record.

A trip away to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League between the home league dates may offer a decent chance to end the away hoodoo. Dinamo were beaten 9-2 in Munich in September, while Dortmund are the second-highest scorers in the competition currently and have won away at Club Brugge already.

Trips to Mönchengladbach and Wolfsburg in December then provide the last two chances to reverse their away Bundesliga misery before the winter break.

So, is it all a question of tactics? Or perhaps that oft-used word around Dortmund of ‘mentality’? Players themselves are quick to dismiss talk of the latter, but the numbers do suggest that they certainly play differently depending on location.

Ultimately, any analysis of Dortmund's away performances would point to one thing - they need to play better, as Brandt reflected after the defeat in Mainz, saying: “We need to defend together and we need to defend more consistently. We need to do our job, and unfortunately we didn't do that today, like in many of our away games.”

Blue is never a good colour to have around Dortmund at the best of times, so away-day blues is something they will want rid of as quickly as possible.

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