The same old BVB tune: Borussia Dortmund keep winning with football that remains limited in substance

Five competitive games, five wins, three clean sheets, their best Bundesliga start since 2015: things are running very smoothly for Borussia Dortmund right now. The Westphalians have started the season, still only a few weeks old, in much the same way they played last year. BVB are hard to beat, the defence is standing firm and they are clinical at the top end of the pitch. Few sides will relish facing Niko Kovac's team.

Even so, it is still far too early in the campaign to draw sweeping conclusions. Plenty can still change, plenty can still develop, and a proper assessment will need more matches.

One thing already stands out, though: in footballing terms, Dortmund remain stuck in the familiar, successful Kovac dilemma. The brief handed to the coach by the club's decision-makers before the season was crystal clear. "Of course we now also want to take the next step somewhere," said sporting managing director Lars Ricken. His colleague Carsten Cramer put it like this: "Work and spectacle must complement each other, we want to make a mark in this area."

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BVB superior against Paderborn? "I didn't see it that way at all"

So far, neither has happened. BVB may have enjoyed a promising summer in the transfer market and signed Joey Veerman, a player capable of breaking through the usual Kovac U in build-up play in central areas and providing more variety. Yet the build-up still has not improved structurally, regardless of the different personnel combinations or the after-effects of a Champions League match.

After his Paderborn side's 3-0 defeat at Signal Iduna Park on Saturday afternoon, Sky asked Ralf Kettemann why BVB had been so superior. The promoted side's coach gave the right answer: "I didn't see it that way at all." For Kettemann, the difference between the two teams was their efficiency in the final third.

He was right. Compared to Borussia, SCP, who had previously and still remain without a goal, showed the more mature approach and a clearly visible plan both in and out of possession. At the break, the visitors led the stats for touches in the opposition penalty area by 15:8 and for shots in the box by 5:1.

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BVB still lack a collectively executed playing idea

Dortmund, however, were 1-0 up because one well-worked counter-attack (!), helped by a mistake in Paderborn's defence, was enough. Other than that, BVB had major problems playing through the East Westphalians' man-to-man defending and moving the ball towards goal with any clear plan. The passing distances were often simply too great.

With the ball, the Westphalians still lack a collectively executed idea. That was also true in the previous matches, in which creative player Konstantinos Karetsas was available unlike on Saturday. The result was that against a promoted side, BVB did not impose themselves in footballing terms, not over the full game. Instead, Kovac's team continue to live off their individual quality, as substitute Felix Nmecha's two superb goals underlined in shaping the final score.

"I don't think we played our best game. We found a way to win again. That's a good sign, but we made it difficult for ourselves, especially in the final third. That's something we have to improve," said Ethan Nwaneri. "That was a hard-fought win, they didn't play well. For long spells they found it incredibly difficult to break down the Paderborn side, who also had a lot of the game in the second half," was the analysis of Sky pundit Dietmar Hamann.

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The old BVB refrain: football limited in substance

For Borussia, that should be a concern. In many spells of the second 45 minutes, Dortmund, despite the new metronome Veerman and the later introduction of Nmecha, failed to calm the game down. They pushed for the 2-0 and created openings for it, but it did not come at first. Instead, Paderborn kept threatening in flashes around the Dortmund box as they chased an equaliser.

That is the familiar problem. BVB need to improve exactly here, and Kovac must develop the team further if at all possible. If that does not happen, the outcome is likely to mirror last season: football that reliably brings wins and points, but is so limited in substance that the road ends quickly against opponents of equal or greater quality.

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BVB: five games, five wins, but still no spectacle

There has certainly been no sign yet of the much-quoted spectacle. That does not mean crude match patterns such as the 3-2 win in Hoffenheim, when BVB offered nothing for 60 minutes and, despite improving after going 2-0 down, ultimately won very fortunately. Nor does it mean the collective passivity after taking the lead against Villarreal last Tuesday. It means dominant displays full of footballing class, tactical maturity, self-confidence in possession and a constant threat in front of goal.

Kovac still has plenty of work to do before they reach that point. He will keep getting the time and the chance to do it. The volume of wins speaks clearly in his favour and, in football, that is the most important currency. Against Paderborn as well. Especially when you consider this statistic: with the win against SCP, BVB have won only their 38th match (out of 61) against a promoted side since 2012/13. Bayern Munich won 53 of 60 such duels.

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