The World Cup winner struggled under Lucien Favre at the start of 2018-19, but has now forced his way back into the first team <\/p>\n
Mario Gotze has pledged to improve after forcing his way back into Lucien Favre’s plans at Borussia Dortmund.<\/p>\n
Germany international Gotze has made just 15\u00a0appearances in all competitions\u00a0for the Bundesliga leaders this term, starting nine times.<\/p>\n
He had to wait until October for his first Bundesliga appearance, but enjoyed a better end to 2018, featuring in seven successive league games.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n And while acknowledging he found his stuttering start to the campaign difficult, the World Cup winner is eager to grasp his chance to impress Favre.<\/p>\n “There are times when things are not going according to plan, and of course you never want those times,” Gotze told German newspaper\u00a0 Welt am Sonntag <\/em> .\u00a0<\/p>\n “The beginning of the season was very tricky, I have to admit.<\/p>\n “But I’m not a player who says, ‘I’m down’.\u00a0I’m a team player and think of the team first.<\/p>\n “It’s important to reflect and draw the right conclusions.\u00a0There is only one way for me to continue, [that is]\u00a0working on myself, continuing to do my best.<\/p>\n “The way the year ended was again very positive for me.\u00a0From this I draw strength for the next months.”<\/p>\n Favre, meanwhile, echoed Gotze’s sentiment, adding that the playmaker has adapted his game to suit an\u00a0intense style of play.<\/p>\n “He never let himself down and showed in every training that he wants [to be involved],” Favre told Bild <\/em> .<\/p>\n “Mario plays in front and does that well, he runs a lot, defends and squeezes well.”<\/p>\n Dortmund hold a six-point lead over Bayern Munich heading into the second half of the campaign, and face RB Leipzig in their first Bundesliga outing of 2019.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The World Cup winner struggled under Lucien Favre at the start of 2018-19, but has now forced his way back into the first team Mario Gotze has pledged to improve after forcing his way back into Lucien Favre’s plans at Borussia Dortmund. Germany international Gotze has made just 15\u00a0appearances in all competitions\u00a0for the Bundesliga leaders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n