‘Calm, composed and settled’ – Borussia Dortmund boss Lars Ricken praises Daniel Svensson | OneFootball

The Borussia Dortmund media duties ahead of this weekend’s “kleines Revierderby” showdown with VfL Bochum fell to BVB boss Lars Ricken on Friday afternoon. The Dortmund manager – one front office colleague lighter following Sven Mislintat’s sacking earlier this month – sought to emphasise positive developments in a Friday-released engagement with BVB-TV.

New head coach Niko Kovac and signing Daniel Svensson received praise. In both cases, Ricken opted to stress “calmness and composure.” This obviously was no accident. Ricken called Dortmund’s current standing in 11th place in the Bundesliga table a “miserable situation.” The BVB manager’s words deliberately steered away from a hard press of the “panic button.”

“Niko has met our expectations,” Ricken said. “He’s been calm and clear. Clear directives. Clear ideas. We came out of the locker room [for the respective second halves] very good against Stuttgart and Sporting.“

When it came time to weigh in on Svensson, a potential game-changing presence in Dortmund’s quest to salvage their season, Ricken also chose to emphasise “calmness.” Svensson made his starting XI debut in the 3-0 Champions League shutout of Sporting CP. The Swede looked sharp with his touches, tackles, and (extremely important for Dortmund) composed passing out-of-the-back.

“He looked relatively settled,” Ricken said of the Nordsjælland loanee. “He looked to be incredibly fit and tactically clever. He didn’t shy away from any tackles and initiated [ the 1-0 ] with his counter pressing.

“We’ve had some trouble building some momentum this season, but there are very good indicators that something larger can grow,” Ricken continued. “We have tough fights ahead. It’s time to make our presence felt.“`

GGFN | Peter Weis