U23s to kick off second half-season at home to Wehen Wiesbaden | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund's U23s will welcome SV Wehen Wiesbaden to SIGNAL IDUNA PARK on Sunday 29/01 (14:00 CET). The Black & Yellows are looking to get their 3. Liga campaign back on track.

Dortmund's reserves are currently without a point in five games. The team also came away empty-handed in Tuesday's 2-1 defeat to Osnabrück. "We're currently missing a few details to pick up points. A good example was the incident in stoppage time when the opposition player scraped our header off the line. A point would've done us good. We had to do some rebuilding work in the aftermath," said head coach Christian Preusser.

There was already a run of four defeats on the trot in the first half of the season. The team managed to extricate itself from that downward spiral back then – and Preusser hopes they can again: "That's in the back of our mind and gives us confidence that things can quickly go in the other direction again. But what's important is that we now achieve a small success, then maybe another and that can then lead to upward momentum again."

BVB have experienced that before, having put an unbeaten run together from Matchday 9 to 14. They had a six-point cushion to the relegation zone back then. That has now shrunk to one point. But Borussia's tactician remains optimistic: "We want to steadily work our way out of this again. That will be the challenge in the coming weeks. We shall approach it with confidence, and I have the feeling we'll manage it fine. What will be important is that we maintain this belief."

Even if the next visitors to Dortmund are SV Wehen Wiesbaden, the side in second place in the table. The Hesse outfit are in great form at the moment: the visitors are on a five-match unbeaten streak, with SVWW having won four games during that run. "They have come racing out of the starting blocks and are very much in the promotion battle. They worked hard for that in the first half-season. But the reverse fixture was very even and we will do everything in our power to ensure that we manage that again," said a confident Preusser.

After a hard-fought 90 minutes, that clash at the end of July finished 1-1. Preusser will have his captain Franz Pfanne back for the return fixture. The 28-year-old veteran tore muscle fibres in the training camp and is now available again.

On the transfer front, the Hohenbuschei training ground has been a hive of activity this week. Two established players, Kolbeinn Finnsson and Marco Hober, left the club. Finnsson, who has joined Danish top-flight outfit Lyngby BK with immediate effect, spent three years lacing his boots for the Black & Yellows. Hober, who will now ply his trade for Regionalliga side SV Rödinghausen, had been in Dortmund for six years and was the longest-serving player in the U23 squad. Moritz Broschinski, the joint top-scorer for the U23s along with Marco Pasalic, also left to join to VfL Bochum. Moses Otuali was immediately signed as the striker's replacement. The 20-year-old centre-forward has transferred to the Dortmund reserves from Hamburger SV, and Christian Preusser is excited about his arrival. "We're looking forward to having him. He's a quick player who possesses a lot of tempo in one-on-ones and will enrich our counter-attacking game. He has also proven his goal threat over the past two years."

The new signing will be eager to showcase his quality this coming Sunday and help the U23s turn the corner.