Borussia Dortmund suffered their first defeat of the season last weekend, falling 1-5 away at Stuttgart.
It was by far the weakest display from Der BVB since Nuri Sahin took charge this summer. It will be very interesting to see how the team will react after allowing nine shots on target and conceding five goals.
Dortmund will have a nice opportunity to bounce back, though. They host strugglers Bochum in the first match of Gameweek No 5 on Friday evening at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK.
Bochum clinched their maiden point of the 2024/25 campaign last weekend, playing a 2-2 stalemate at home to fellow strugglers Holstein Kiel.
It was a match between two teams with zero points from the inaugural three rounds. Both outfits shown numerous flaws in defence but Bochum were certainly the worse of the two sides on the occasion.
Bochum have not been pulling up any trees so far in the season. They’ve been particularly poor defensively of late, shipping two goals in each of the previous three affairs.
The fact they allowed an xG of 2.10 in the home fixture against the likes of Holstein Kiel speaks volumes.
Bochum are now set to face one of the deadliest attacking lines in the German top flight and we can hardly expect anything other but a goal fest.
Furthermore, Borussia will be highly motivated to rebound after a horrendous showing in a 1-5 loss at Stuttgart.
Dortmund also have three wins and two draws in the last five meetings with Bochum to back them up ahead of this tie.