Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice on Sunday as second-placed Borussia Dortmund benched captain Mats Hummels and returned to winning ways with a 4-1 win at home to VfB Stuttgart.
Gabon striker Aubameyang made sure of his status as the Bundesliga’s top scorer with his 16th and 17th league goals in 14 games this season after Gonzalo Castro had headed Borussia into an early lead.
Daniel Didavi pulled a goal back for strugglers Stuttgart with halftime approaching.
But a Georg Niedermeier own-goal left the visitors 3-1 down before Aubameyang grabbed their superb fourth goal and his second to inflict a third straight defeat on Stuttgart.
Hummels dominated the pre-match talk, because, despite his status as a World Cup winner with Germany, he found himself on the bench at Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park due to his poor performances.
He scored an own goal in Dortmund’s shock 3-1 defeat at Hamburg ten days ago in the Bundesliga, then conceded the penalty which sealed their 1-0 defeat on Thursday at Russia’s FK Krasnodar in the Europa League group stages.
The 26-year-old came on for the final 10 minutes against Stuttgart for Germany winger Marco Reus with Dortmund 3-1 up.
Stuttgart’s caretaker coach Jurgen Kramny got off to a losing start after replacing Alexander Zorniger in the wake of last weekend’s 4-0 thumping at home to Augsburg and the defeat kept his side third from bottom.
Support InfoStride News' Credible Journalism: Only credible journalism can guarantee a fair, accountable and transparent society, including democracy and government. It involves a lot of efforts and money. We need your support. Click here to Donate