He is running out of arguments: Ethan Nwaneri is a victim of Kovac’s biggest problem at Borussia Dortmund

Loan signing Ethan Nwaneri has featured regularly for Borussia Dortmund so far. However, the 19-year-old attacking player has yet to impress.

Ethan Nwaneri cannot complain about a lack of playing time at present. When Borussia Dortmund face FK Sabah in the Champions League on Tuesday evening, the Englishman looks highly likely to surpass the minutes he played during his previous loan spell at Olympique Marseille. He needs 17 minutes in Azerbaijan to reach 412 for BVB, in just eight matches rather than eleven.

Yet the 62 minutes the 19-year-old played in the 0-0 draw at Union Berlin might never have happened. After just 14 seconds, Nwaneri made a sideways tackle on former Dortmund player Tom Rothe. Four seconds later, Daniel Schlager showed him a red card. The referee had made a mistake, though, and rightly changed it to yellow.

That reprieve was about the best news Nwaneri gave BVB in the capital on Saturday. A red-card ban would have added to their problems alongside the injury-related absence of Konstantinos Karetsas, who will be missing for Borussia for some time.

In Köpenick, Nwaneri followed a familiar pattern for Dortmund: plenty of involvement, plenty of touches and flashes of danger, but little luck with his attempts, including those on goal. So far, his only statistical contribution is the assist credited to him before Albian Hajdari's own goal in the 3-2 win at Hoffenheim on Nwaneri's debut.

Ethan Nwaneri still without a goal of his own for BVB

For an attacking player, that's not enough. Nor are 14 goals in eight Bundesliga and Champions League matches enough for BVB. "He's just missing a bit of a breakthrough at the moment, a goal to break the deadlock for him," Lars Ricken said at the weekend.

Dortmund's managing director for sport nevertheless felt Nwaneri's performances had been "good so far" and hoped he would soon find more end product: "We'll need him and will therefore give him our full support, especially now, with Karetsas set to be out again."

Ricken may be right that a goal could provide the breakthrough. Several moments could already have changed things for Nwaneri, who has had the third-most playing time of the new signings. At Stuttgart, for example, he scored from a narrow offside position. Against Bremen, the referee whistled early for a VAR review over an alleged foul by Waldemar Anton on Niclas Füllkrug before Nwaneri scored with an overhead kick. In the same match, Nwaneri set up a clear first-half chance for Maximilian Beier with an impressive pass.

Ethan Nwaneri is also a victim of BVB's predictable attacking play

Most recently, in the disappointing display against Bodö/Glimt (0-1), Nwaneri was one of four substitutes who helped Dortmund improve in the final half-hour. He should still have done more with an unmarked header in front of goal and a shooting chance following a corner shortly before the end.

Around five weeks ago, coach Niko Kovac described the Arsenal loanee as "very good technically". The 18-cap under-21 international has outstanding technique and ball control. Neither counts for much, though, when BVB play the uninspired, predictable attacking football they have shown all too often under Kovac.

In the final third, Borussia still rely mostly on individual quality and individual moves to break down deep blocks and tightly packed defences. Several team-mates rarely combine in structured, coordinated attacking patterns. When a player such as Nwaneri fails to beat his opponent, the attack quickly runs out of steam.

Ethan Nwaneri has yet to truly convince at BVB

That reliance puts too much responsibility for an attack's success on the attacking players. With most moves effectively fifty-fifty propositions, it also exposes weaknesses. Nwaneri has too often made little impact in one-on-one situations, lacked pace or failed to show the necessary precision in his passing.

Like Karetsas, Nwaneri looks more comfortable in the right half-space and, above all, in the centre than providing width near the touchline. He moves into those areas at times, which has made him a little more direct. But that runs counter to Dortmund's attacking structure, which calls for play, particularly crosses, down the right wing.

Before the next international break in mid-November, Nwaneri will have more chances to show whether he can establish himself within this set-up and end his goalless run. If he carries on as he has, the case for playing him should weaken, particularly with Dortmund's future and the development of young talent in mind.

Will Mathis Albert become a threat to Ethan Nwaneri?

In Berlin, Kovac gave 17-year-old Mathis Albert 20 minutes, his first appearance of this Bundesliga season. Experience with the coach suggests that was not a signal to players such as Nwaneri. But in his 112 senior minutes so far, Albert has already suggested that his courage, dribbling and pace can produce the moments Borussia often lack.

"I'm very, very happy with him. He'll be very important for us in the coming weeks and months," Kovac said of Nwaneri in September. The Croatian will give him further chances to prove himself in the near future. When his prediction will come true remains to be seen.

Ethan Nwaneri: His senior career at a glance