Serhou Guirassy scored his first league goal since October as Borussia Dortmund beat Werder Bremen 3-0 at home on Tuesday and restore their four-point buffer in second spot.
Nico Schlotterbeck and Marcel Sabitzer scored while Guirassy responded to being benched for the first time this season by tapping in late after Jobe Bellingham pressed Bremen into a mistake.
Stuttgart’s 3-2 win over Eintracht Frankfurt earlier in the evening moved the German Cup holders within a point but 2024 Champions League finalists Dortmund responded with a controlled but unspectacular performance.
Schlotterbeck said Dortmund were “not perfect, but on the right path. We’ve still got a few steps to take, but we’ll do that in the next few weeks.”
Dortmund moved eight points behind leaders Bayern Munich, who play away at Cologne on Wednesday.
Schlotterbeck, Dortmund’s captain and standout player this season, put his side in front with a regulation header from a corner 11 minutes in.
The hosts were sloppy with the ball and disorganised without it in the opening half, leaving the field to isolated boos and whistles from the fans, even if Bremen lacked the quality to punish them.
Making his 250th Bundesliga appearance, Sabitzer put nervy Dortmund two ahead with a 76th-minute goal, guiding the ball into the bottom left corner.
“Obviously it wasn’t our best game — everyone has the right to react how they like,” Sabitzer told Sky. “There’s no point beating around the bush — obviously it’s not what we’re aiming for.”
Benched in favour of former Wolves striker Fabio Silva, Guirassy came on midway through the second half and was in the right place to score when Bellingham won the ball with seven minutes left.
Stuttgart’s ‘wild’ win
Nikolas Nartey nabbed a late winner and Deniz Undav continued his hot form as Stuttgart beat Eintracht Frankfurt at home to climb to two spots to third.
“It was wild,” Undav told Sky Germany of the “spectacular game”.
“I could have scored 10 goals myself. We could have easily won 3-1, 4-1.”
Frankfurt have struggled this season after last campaign’s third-placed finish, their best result in three decades.
Rasmus Kristensen connected with a corner to put his side in front after five minutes, but Frankfurt ushered Stuttgart back into the game when goalkeeper Kaua Santos spilled a routine catch, allowing Ermedin Demirovic to slice home.
Undav put his side in front 10 minutes before the break, wrong-footing the Frankfurt defence and blasting a low shot which took a thick deflection into the bottom corner.
Undav, who has nine goals and two assists in his past eight league games, forced two desperation saves from Santos and flashed just wide of the post in the second half.
Ayoube Amaimouni-Echghouyab levelled three minutes after coming on but his effort was bested by another debut goal minutes later, when Nartey tapped in from close range.
Mainz continued their resurgence under new coach Urs Fischer, lifting themselves off the bottom of the table with a 2-1 win over Heidenheim, who replaced them in last spot.
Tuesday’s match between Hamburg and Bayer Leverkusen was postponed just two hours before kick-off, the third Bundesliga game cancelled in the space of a week due to wild winter weather across northern Germany.
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