From chaos to control? Kovac's Dortmund shows early signs of real progress

In their 6-0 win over Union Berlin, Borussia Dortmund finally looked like a team with a plan and a purpose under their new head coach.

Everything fell into place for Borussia Dortmund on Saturday. Although Union Berlin had undoubtedly come to town in the hope of causing a similar upset to the one they’d inflicted on RB Leipzig and Mainz in recent weeks, Steffen Baumgart’s optimistic but incredibly naive side were ultimately the architects of their own doom at the Westfalenstadion.

This was perhaps evident just 25 minutes into the contest, when a speculative cross from Julian Ryerson ricocheted off the shin of Diogo Leite and looped into the back of the Union net. Perhaps it became clearer just 15 minutes later, when Woo-Yeong Jeong’s failure to deal with a loose ball deep in his own half led to Pascal Groß swinging in a cross for Serhou Guirassy to make it two to the home side. But it was beyond doubt in the 75th minute, when Josip Juranovic’s attempt to flick the ball over the aforementioned Groß deep inside his own half allowed the midfielder to casually intercept the ball and pass it on to Guirassy to make it three.

Indeed, it was a game that Union emphatically lost more than perhaps Dortmund forcibly won. And while Niko Kovac would have happily had no complaints at full time at the manner in which his team picked up all three points, it was still a game that perhaps didn’t tell us a huge amount about the character and capacity of this new-look Dortmund side. They were more or less presented with multiple open goals and they duly took advantage of them.

Of course, Dortmund and Kovac deserve plenty of credit for the 6-0 win. The new head coach was right to drop out-of-form boy wonder Jamie Gittens for Maximilian Beier and the absence of Julian Brandt brought out the very best in Groß, who finished the game with no less than four assists. Not to mention that Kovac clearly knows how to provide ample service to Guirassy, who has surprised some (including this writer) with how well he has adapted to his new club and more or less continued his impressive goal-scoring record from Stuttgart.