Marco Reus maintained Borussia Dortmund's distant pursuit of Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich by firing them to victory at Borussia Monchengladbach with his first goal since May.
Reus' 32nd-minute strike from Andre Schurrle's pass clinched a 1-0 win at Borussia Park to ease the visitors into second place, if 19 points behind the pace-setters.
However, Dortmund were forced to weather a storm as the home side fought desperately for some reward.
Goalkeeper Roman Burki produced a string of saves to deny them, clawing away Nico Elvedi's 69th-minute header and substitute Josip Drmic's injury-time effort with Lars Stindl, Raul Bobadilla, Thorgan Hazard and Denis Zakaria also going close.
However, a combination of Burki's heroics and some last-ditch defending saw the visitors through and Michy Batshuayi might even have extended their lead as time ran down.
Reus has missed most of the current campaign with a cruciate ligament tear, and had not been on the scoresheet for Dortmund since scoring twice on the final day of last season.
Mario Gomez was Stuttgart's hero as they claimed back-to-back league victories for the first time this season with a 1-0 win at Augsburg.
Gomez's 27th-minute strike was enough to secure three points and ease the visitors further clear of the drop zone, although they needed the help of the video assistant referee to preserve their lead.
Michael Gregoritsch thought he had levelled from Koo Ja-cheol's through-ball 10 minutes later, but a video review confirmed the striker was in an offside position.
Stuttgart enjoyed the better of the second-half chances, but were unable to make any of them count with Augsburg keeper Marwin Hitz making a fine 65th-minute save from Gomez as the result remained in the melting pot until the final whistle.
Comments
Post a Comment
Let's talk people, Tell me what you think