Dortmund's downfall

It doesn't matter which way you look at it, Borussia Dortmund's domestic season is really off to a shocker.

With 10 matches behind them in the Bundesliga – nearly a third of the way through the season - they have managed just a measly seven points. Their string of losses has now stretched to five games in a row.

It's not what you would expect from the team that has, up until recently, been the only serious competition for record-champions Bayern Munich in Germany. So, where does the explanation lie?

Wobbly defense

This season in the Bundesliga, Dortmund have let in 17 goals. That's not the worst in the league by any stretch: teams above them on the table, like Stuttgart, Hertha Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt, have been worse.

The problem at Dortmund has been the fact that they have made big mistakes at the wrong times. Take Neven Subotic's error against Franck Ribery in the second half against Bayern on Saturday, for instance.

His challenge on Ribery gave away the penalty, which Arjen Robben then converted. In such a tight encounter, it ended up costing BVB the game. Highly-fancied defenders Mats Hummels and Erik Durm have also had similar moments this season too, as has Roman Weidenfeller, who finally put in a good performance against Bayern.

These players have to find their consistency soon, otherwise Dortmund is going to really be playing catch up all season.

Running out of gas

When it works, Dortmund's quick, counterattacking brand of football moves very fast and looks exceptional on the eye. It is what made the team so successful in the past, allowing them to win the domestic double in 2012 and get to the Champions League final a year later.

It seems as though at times this season the Dortmund players are unable to produce this sort of play for the full 90 minutes of the game. In fact, they have conceded 11 of their 17 goals in the last half an hour of play.

On Saturday against Bayern, the team again ran a total of over 120 kilometers collectively, and so it's no wonder that they get a bit lazy, or drained out, come the end of the game.

Is it still the World Cup hangover affecting the players' fitness? Or have their league opponents just got smarter at weathering the onslaught, and are therefore fresher to attack at the end of the game? It's probably a bit of both.

Injury disruptions

It's not just match fitness causing problems, it's also injuries too. It's fair to assume that missing players are still causing problems at Jürgen Klopp's team selection meetings. While players like Ilkay Gündogan and Sebastian Kehl are taking time to return to form from their respective injuries, Mats Hummels is now set to miss more games.

His club confirmed on Sunday that he will likely miss at least another three weeks with injured ankle ligaments, and this will only serve to disrupt the team's defensive organization more.

Dortmund do have some great players on the bench – Ciro Immobile spent all of the Bayern game on the sidelines for instance - but the fact that Dortmund's starting team keeps changing isn't helping them to find a rhythm.

Interestingly, the back-four that played in the 2013 Champions League final at Wembley - Hummels, Subotic, Lukas Piszczek and Marcel Schmelzer - has not managed to line-up on the pitch together since.

The Reus factor

Not a week seems to go by where Bayern chief Karl-Heinz Rummenigge doesn't mention in the press that he's "said enough" about Marco Reus' contract buyout clause.

Yes, there's no doubt that Germany's domestic media is dancing around on this topic continuously. But there's also no doubt that Bayern would be interested in signing up Marco Reus to their books, if they could.

Reus' good friend Mario Götze would also welcome him to the Munich-based club, you would imagine. But nothing is certain, however.

The question is though: is all this affecting Reus' standard of play and the team spirit in Borussia Dortmund's ranks? It would seem naïve to think that it isn't having some affect on Reus at least.

Just recently, he went to the trouble of posting a message on his Facebook page saying that "others are thinking more about this [moving to Bayern] issue than I am at the moment."

The saga rumbles on.

Motivational questions

When it comes to the Champions League, Borussia Dortmund continue to cut a pretty good figure, having won all three European games this season convincingly. It seems that when they are on the European stage they are brimming with motivation and excitement at the challenge.

Either that or Arsenal, Anderlecht and Galatasaray are just lower in standard than most Bundesliga opponents. And, that seems pretty unlikely.

Are Jürgen Klopp's pre-game, motivational speeches not doing the job in the Bundesliga anymore? Or are the team just expecting things to happen, because of their success in the past?

By now, at least, there should be reason enough to turn things around, even if confidence levels are low: if Dortmund doesn't start winning in the league soon, then they'll be going down.

The last time that happened was way back in 1972.