Next Saturday, 22nd of November 2014, a painfully inconsistent Borussia Dortmund will travel to North Rhine-Westphalia to measure forces with Paderborn at the Benteler Arena for round 12 of the Bundesliga, on a match of paramount importance for the former European champions, who currently find themselves at the 15th place of the league table, with the same points of Werder Bremen, who are just below the relegation line.

It is hard to believe that a team such as Borussia Dortmund has only managed to snatch 10 points from 11 matches so far and that they are already 17 points behind the league leaders Bayern Munich so early in the season. The truth is that Dortmund has been nothing but a mere shadow of what they have been, let’s say, over the last two decades and they are currently dangerously close from the relegation zone.

After seven matches without a single win for the Bundesliga, Dortmund have finally managed to return to wins two weeks ago when they met Borussia Moenchengladbach at the Westfalenstadion. Nevertheless, Jürgen Klopp’s boys needed a ridiculous own goal by Kramer early in the second-half to claim the three points, something that is clearly insufficient for a team with Dortmund’s quality standards.

Things are far from being easy for Jürgen Klopp, who was the main target for the supporters’ and pundits’ criticism recently, but the experienced German manager might still have something up his sleeve to make a strong comeback this season.

The upcoming match at Paderborn might be fairly complicated, especially if we think of the good campaign the Bundesliga newcomers have been having so far. For that particular match, Jürgen Klopp will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of Marcos Reus, Sahin, Hummels and Blaszczykowski, all currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Paderborn, their debut at Bundesliga has been fairly impressive so far with the team managing to sitting at a place on the first half of the table after eleven matches. The North-Rhine Westphalia’s team started the season at full speed and remained undefeated for four matches until they measured forces with the all-powerful Bayern Munich on the fifth round of the competition. From that match onwards, the team has been experiencing some complicated moments, especially away from home.

Despite their recent unconventional moment, Borussia Dortmund are slightly favourites for the upcoming match, although, if we consider that Paderborn have only lost once at home this season, one might certainly expect Der BVB to experience some difficult times at the Benteler Arena next Saturday.

Paderbon

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - LWLWW

Borussia Dortmund

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WWLWL

Possible Line-ups

Paderborn (4-2-3-1) - Kruse - Wemmer - Strohdiek - Ziegler - Brückner - Bakalorz - Vrancic - Koc - Meha - Stoppelkamp - Kachunga

Borussia Dortmund (4-2-3-1) - Weidenfeller - Piszczek - Sokratis - Subotic - Erik Durm - Kehl - Bender - Mkhitaryan - Kagawa- Aubameyang - Immobile

Prediction

Paderborn 1 Borussia Dortmund 2