Nico Schlotterbeck on Borussia Dortmund’s loss to Manchester City: “They practically outplayed us at times.”

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·6 November 2025

Nico Schlotterbeck on Borussia Dortmund’s loss to Manchester City: “They practically outplayed us at times.”

Speaking to DAZN (via Sky Germany), following Borussia Dortmund’s 4-1 loss to Manchester City, Nico Schlotterbeck addressed the team’s performance.

On the loss, where Dortmund were comfortably outplayed by the hosts, Dortmund’s defender gave his thoughts on their performance:

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“We played well for the first 15 minutes, then we let City control the game for 20 minutes. They practically outplayed us at times. We deserved to lose because we simply weren’t good enough.”

Then later in the mixed zone, where GGFN were on site, Schlotterbeck added:

“Man City was the significantly better team today.” While there were some promising signs from Dortmund in the opening phase…after that, we fell into such a rut that we simply ceded the game to them completely, almost until halftime, And then we weren’t good enough defending today. In the end, you concede four goals, and that’s simply too many to take anything away from here.”

Dortmund’s defensive passivity:

For three of the goals, Phil Foden’s double and Rayan Cherki’s late goal, die Schwarzgelben defenders rarely attempted to close down the City defender or put a challenge in. On their inability to be more proactive in the defence, Schlotterbeck said:

“We were too slow in covering, and then he slotted it perfectly into the side pocket, and the second one was exactly the same. At this level, a lot of things get punished, and this one was. That’s why it’s all the more bitter when you know how good these guys are.”

Part of BVB’s plan defensively was to man-mark Erling Haaland with Schlotterbeck, and it didn’t really work, as not only did the Norwegian score, but it also meant less attention was put on the likes of Phil Foden and Tijani Reijnders, who Dortmund did not have answers for.

GGFN | Jack Meenan