Shambolic Borussia Dortmund suffer 5-2 defeat at home to Bayer Leverkusen

Borussia Dortmund suffered a 5-2 thrashing at home to Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday afternoon, all but ending any hope they had of winning the Bundesliga title.

Marco Rose promised after the win over TSG Hoffenheim last month that they will work on improving defensively over the international break. But any work that they may have done on the training ground over the last two weeks certainly wasn’t apparent on Sunday, as Borussia Dortmund suffered an embarrassing 5-2 defeat at home to Bayer Leverkusen.

It was a performance full of calamitous and sloppy errors from the Black and Yellows. And they paid dearly for it, as Bayer Leverkusen picked them apart almost every time they decided to venture forward.

Borussia Dortmund actually made an encouraging start to the game and created a few good openings in the first ten minutes. But then in typical Dortmund fashion, they gifted the opening goal of the game to Bayer Leverkusen.

A comedy of errors started with Dan-Axel Zagadou losing the ball on the edge of the box. Gregor Kobel did really well to save Patrik Schick’s initial effort. But he pushed the ball straight into the path of Manuel Akanji, who inadvertently knocked it into his own net.

Borussia Dortmund issued a fast response and found themselves back on level terms just five minutes later. Julian Brandt’s free-kick found the back of the Leverkusen net via a touch from Bayer Leverkusen defender Jeremy Frimpong.

Buoyed by their equaliser, Dortmund looked to take the lead. But a giveaway led to a stunning Leverkusen counter attack. And the BVB defenders could only watch as Florian Wirtz put the away side back in front. Robert Andrich then doubled Leverkusen’s lead at the half hour mark with a brilliantly taken free-kick after Mahmoud Dahoud committed a poor foul on the edge of the box.

Borussia Dortmund never really looked like getting back into the game, and Leverkusen added a fourth early in the second half thanks to an excellent volley from Jonathan Tah. Moussa Diaby then added more salt to the BVB wounds by making it 1-5 at the end of another quick-fire counter-attack.

Borussia Dortmund did pull one back late on, with Steffen Tigges scoring his third goal of the season to make it 2-5. But it was nothing more than a consolation goal as Leverkusen claimed a famous win to spell the end of Dortmund’s title charge.

There was a real sense of deja-vu to this game, with plenty of comparisons to last season’s 5-1 defeat to VfB Stuttgart that marked the end of Lucien Favre’s time at the club.

While Marco Rose is highly unlikely to receive the sack, this defeat will no doubt lead to plenty of questions for the BVB bosses. Dortmund have conceded 36 goals in the Bundesliga alone this season, which is more than any other team in the top half of the table. And if they keep defending like they did against Leverkusen, this season could quickly go from disappointing to disaster.