“Hoffenheim’s performances so far this season are better than the table suggests”, insisted Tuchel while Hoffenheim struggle for goals after selling Roberto Firminio to Liverpool and Frenchman Anthony Modeste to Cologne.
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Despite looking exhausted after their midweek 4-1 Champions League win over BATE Borisov, Leverkusen went close to equalising just after the break but Javier Hernández’s close-range effort was blocked by Roman Buerki.
Der BVB is now at the top of the Bundesliga table, side-by-side with their long term rivals, Bayern Munich, and they have already scored 18 goals and conceded only two in five league matches so far.
Aubameyang’s tally matches that of Bayern’s Thomas Mueller and the pair are the league’s current top scorers.
The sixth round see midweek games taking place, with defending champion Bayern hosting runner-up Wolfsburg on Tuesday, before Dortmund – which leads Bayern on goal difference – visits Hoffenheim on Wednesday.
Wolfsburg are strong, but it’s nigh on impossible to look past Bayern for the win.
“I want to score 20 goals in the Bundesliga this season”, the 26-year-old added.
“We have started the season very well”, he said ahead of the game. He talks to me a lot.
“We are waiting for Nuri and will give him all the time he needs [to get fit]”.
“We have many exchanges and we work a lot on this, on the videos and we do all this kind of things”.
Park followed Tuchel’s path in joining from Mainz last month, but despite his match-winning form, the South Korean is not guaranteed to start against Leverkusen as he waits to make his Bundesliga debut for Dortmund.
Dortmund’s Gonzalo Castro nearly punished his former club but his low drive hit the post in the final minute with Leverkusen suffering their third straight loss in the league to remain in 13th spot on six points.
But Dost was later slammed by his coach Dieter Hecking for behaving “like someone had taken his toys away” in training having been subbed off in Wolfsburg’s Champions League win at home to CSKA Moscow last Tuesday.
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Elsewhere, Augsburg picked up their first win of the season with a 2-0 victory at Hanover 96 thanks to goals by right-winger Alexander Esswein and Dutch defender Paul Verhaegh.
