Bundesliga: Do Borussia Dortmund regret Klopp vow?

Was Jurgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund job for life misadvertised?

Loyalty in football is always saluted, but it isn't rewarding Borussia Dortmund or Jurgen Klopp at present...

"We will never sack Jurgen Klopp."

That was Borussia Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke's vehement reply when asked in early January about the predicament that had seen the club - title winners in 2010/11 and 2011/12 and Champions League finalists in 2012/13 - enter the winter break joint-bottom of the Bundesliga.

It was a fairly predictable response. Klopp had made Dortmund one of the most popular sides on the planet, he had never failed to earn a top-six finish (placing sixth, fifth, first, first, second and second), he appeared to retain the faith of both players and fans and reached the round-of-16 in both cups.

Watzke was also speaking halfway through the six-week Bundesliga rest period, when the distress of the first 17 games was less raw. It was easier to take a positive view: the previous few months were an aberration, they would return refreshed and were a mere four points off tenth, and a not-unbridgeable 12 off a Champions League place.

The reality of the two matches since the season restarted crushed any such optimism. Admittedly, they were facing top-six teams, but this was supposed to be a reboot - their moment to show that the Dortmund of the four prior campaigns were back. A 0-0 draw at Bayer Leverkusen and 0-1 home defeat to Augsburg, who played the final 26 minutes with ten men, didn't cut it.

Indeed, the fact that they were playing clubs near the top made the damage even graver. Dortmund are now two points adrift at the bottom and a massive 17 points short of fourth with just 15 fixtures left to claw it back.

It appears as though their only realistic route back into the Champions League is to win this edition, in which they are 44.043/1 outsiders despite a far-from-impossible round-of-16 draw against Juventus.

This clearly can't be dismissed as a blip any more, with their record over the past 16 league games reading P16 W2 D4 L10, yet punters still aren't taking the possibility of relegation seriously. They haven't traded at any shorter than 18.017/1 to finish in the bottom two.

However, if nothing else, Dortmund's struggles might at least stop disgruntled Arsenal fans demanding that they replace Arsene Wenger with Klopp for a few weeks.