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"Stopped playing football" - Reus unsatisfied despite 4-1 win

On Sunday, Marco Reus led his Borussia Dortmund side out onto the field as captain - after the 4-1 victory over VfB Suttgart, the Germany international spoke about the game in the mixed zone. But rather than jumping on the bandwagon after a convincing victory and praising his team and himself for his efforts in causing the own goal to make it 3-1, Marco Reus took a critical standpoint in his interview with DFB.de.

Question: Mr. Reus, what was better today than in the last two games against Hamburg and Krasnodar?

Marco Reus: It was crucial that we took the lead early on. But after going 1-0 up, maybe after going 2-0 up, we stopped playing football. We gave Stuttgart a number of good chances at goal. We were poor, weren’t tight enough and didn’t keep our positions or make the right movements. Then they scored to make it 2-1 and it was suddenly game on. We did take better control of the second half. We had more chances to score the third, especially right after the break. All in all, the second half was much better than the first.

Question: But how does it come to situations like that after going 2-0 up? It wasn’t the first time that has happened this season either.

Reus: That’s a good question! It’s difficult to give a solid answer right after a game like that. But in general it has now happened too often that we’ve switched off and stopped playing football after going one or two goals in front. At least we started well. We wanted to take the lead early because we knew Stuttgart wouldn’t be full of confidence starting the game, given their current situation. We manged to take advantage of this, and then just stopped playing our game. In fact, we were actually lucky not to see them make it 1-1 or 2-2 later on. But the manager said the right things at half time and in the second half, as I said, we were a lot better.

Question: I assume the third goal was fully intentional?

Reus: Of course!

Question: After having lost both games last week, how does this convincing win set you up for the rest of the week in preparations for Saturday’s crunch tie with VfL Wolfsburg?



On Sunday, Marco Reus led his Borussia Dortmund side out onto the field as captain - after the 4-1 victory over VfB Suttgart, the Germany international spoke about the game in the mixed zone. But rather than jumping on the bandwagon after a convincing victory and praising his team and himself for his efforts in causing the own goal to make it 3-1, Marco Reus took a critical standpoint in his interview with DFB.de.

Question: Mr. Reus, what was better today than in the last two games against Hamburg and Krasnodar?

Marco Reus: It was crucial that we took the lead early on. But after going 1-0 up, maybe after going 2-0 up, we stopped playing football. We gave Stuttgart a number of good chances at goal. We were poor, weren’t tight enough and didn’t keep our positions or make the right movements. Then they scored to make it 2-1 and it was suddenly game on. We did take better control of the second half. We had more chances to score the third, especially right after the break. All in all, the second half was much better than the first.

Question: But how does it come to situations like that after going 2-0 up? It wasn’t the first time that has happened this season either.

Reus: That’s a good question! It’s difficult to give a solid answer right after a game like that. But in general it has now happened too often that we’ve switched off and stopped playing football after going one or two goals in front. At least we started well. We wanted to take the lead early because we knew Stuttgart wouldn’t be full of confidence starting the game, given their current situation. We manged to take advantage of this, and then just stopped playing our game. In fact, we were actually lucky not to see them make it 1-1 or 2-2 later on. But the manager said the right things at half time and in the second half, as I said, we were a lot better.

Question: I assume the third goal was fully intentional?

Reus: Of course!

Question: After having lost both games last week, how does this convincing win set you up for the rest of the week in preparations for Saturday’s crunch tie with VfL Wolfsburg?

Reus: We didn’t let the Europa League defeat get us down. But the Hamburg game was a disaster. We keep having the odd game like the one in Hamburg, and we can’t allow that to happen. But it did happen - and we learnt from it. This made the win against Stuttgart all the more important. They are a good team - that has to be said. They move the ball around well, not least going forward. They’ve had the second most shots on goal in the entire Bundesliga. They showed these qualities today in Dortmund. They proved to be a nasty piece of work, but in the second half we performed well and deserved to win the game. Against Wolfsburg we now have a real opportunity to widen the gap between us at second place and the rest of the teams in the league

Question: Mr. Reus, your partner in crime Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored his 16th and 17th goals of the season against Stuttgart. How important is his form for BVB?

Reus: What can I say… Very important! He’s top goalscorer at the moment, we provide him with the chances - and in the one on one situation he’s just unstoppable. If he carries on like this, he’ll be looking at quite an extraordinary goal tally come the end of the season. But we will have to work hard for that.