Bundesliga Preview | Bayer Leverkusen vs Borussia Dortmund – BVB resurgent but defence remains a weakness | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund will want to continue their winning restart to the season against a resurgent Bayer Leverkusen team on Sunday at the BayArena.

After winning against Augsburg last weekend, Dortmund beat Mainz with a late winner to close the gap on the top four. After going down to an early goal from Jae-Sung Lee, Dortmund immediately replied with Julian Ryerson’s first goal for Dortmund. Then in the 93rd minute, Giovanni Reyna scored for the second game in a row to win the game for Dortmund.

Although they showed some defensive improvement against Mainz, Dortmund’s defence is still one of their major weak points and with the top six teams being so close in points, this area could be the difference in a potential league title win, a Champions League spot or a Conference League spot. The positive for Dortmund is that they can benefit from a resurgent Reyna as well as Sébastien Haller as he begins to integrate into the team.

Leverkusen on the other hand see themselves on a five-game winning streak and have had their season turned around under Xabi Alonso. Last weekend they beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-2 before beating Bochum comfortably 2-0 in midweek. Edmund Tapsoba opened the scoring before Adam Hložek scored the second. Most importantly, Florian Wirtz assisted’s Hložek’s goal as he started his first match since March.

The return of Wirtz is a big boost for Leverkusen’s attack as the likes of Jeremie Frimpong and Moussa Diaby had been carrying the majority of the burden when it came to Leverkusen’s attack in the first half of the season. Additionally, Hložlek has begun to look more comfortable for Leverkusen, but Callum Hudson-Odoi is yet to deliver on the promise he came with when he arrived from Chelsea in the summer.

The last time the two teams played each other was at the beginning of the season which saw Dortmund come out 1-0 winners thanks to a Marco Reus goal in the 10th minute. A win for Dortmund would see them level on points with fourth, whilst Leverkusen will leapfrog Gladbach into eighth.

GGFN | Jack Meenan