Three offensive players are a cause for concern at Borussia Dortmund, and the coach is aware of that. But Edin Terzic sees an upward trend.

Despite the poor start after the World Cup break of international player Youssoufa Moukoko and the ongoing goal drought of Donyell Malen and Karim Adeyemi, Borussia Dortmund’s coach Edin Terzic firmly believes in his offensive forces. “With Mucki, it reminds me of the start of the season when he didn’t have the connection either,” Terzic said of Moukoko ahead of Sunday’s (5.30pm/DAZN) league match at Bayer Leverkusen.

“Back then, he fought his way in bit by bit and found his way to scoring important goals himself via important assists. The fact that he didn’t use a huge chance in both games was surprising for him, because he was ice-cold before,” added the BVB coach. However, he added that there had already been a development from the first match of the year against Augsburg (4:3) to the one in Mainz (2:1).

While 18-year-old World Cup participant Moukoko, who recently extended his contract until 2026, has already scored six Bundesliga goals and set up four this season, the record of wingers Malen and Adeyemi reads much more frustrating. Both are still without a league goal. Adeyemi has set up one goal in 13 appearances, Malen two in 12 games.

“You can see development in both of them, though,” assured Terzic. He said Adeyemi has “improved a lot in combination play”, while Dutchman Malen is scoring a lot of goals in training matches. “Both of them have to improve in activity when the ball is not around. These are building sites that we still want to work on. Then we will also manage to see them more in goal-scoring areas. “