The home side started brightly, barely 70 seconds into the match, Marco Reus surged past Julian Korb but his effort slid narrowly wide. A loose ball was picked up by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who pulled it back to Reus and the winger saw his effort brilliantly tipped onto the post by Yann Sommer.
Havard Nordtveit was given a yellow after a cynical foul on Reus, who seemed to be in his usual menacing form. The German international took the costless-kick but was again denied by the Swiss goalkeeper. 22 minutes in, good link up play between Reus and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saw the Gambon international nearly get through on goal, Korb’s vital slide tackle denied the chance though.
Martin Stranzl, was showing why he is Gladbach’s captain when he bravely denied Mkhitaryan and Reus in quick succession. A wonderful pass from Mkhitaryan fed in Polish right back Lukasz Piszczek whose shot showed he is naturally a defender.
The Armenian ,who was showing why Dortmund paid such a large sum of money for his services, snatched his half volley over the bar after a fine pass from Sebastian Kehl, making his 300th appearance in the Bundesliga. Just before the break, Aubameyang rifled a costless-kick towards goal which Sommer did well to tip over.
A freak of an own goal just over 10 minutes into the second half opened the scoring when World Cup winner, Kramer’s back-pass ended up looping over a despairing Sommer from 35 yards. Seconds later, Reus thundered a shot off the underside of the crossbar as the hosts looked to continue their momentum.
After that the visitors offered very little and Jürgen Klopp’s side were never really troubled and should have made the score-line more comfortable. Lucien Favre’s side stay third while Dortmund jump out of the relegation places after the huge, morale-boosting win.
