MARCO REUS INSISTS Borussia Dortmund cannot talk about winning the Bundesliga title after going down to a humiliating 5-0 defeat against rivals Bayern Munich.
Lucien Favre’s side are now a point behind champions Bayern at the summit after a nightmare outing where they were 4-0 down by half-time.
Six matches remain in the top flight this season and, although Reus acknowledges there could be further twists to come, the Germany forward maintains Dortmund must focus only on a grim post-mortem of an abject outing.
“We played catastrophic, we defended catastrophic,” he told reporters. “I don’t have an explanation for that. We [applied] zero pressure. Bayern were much better, we have to admit that.
“Nevertheless, we have to analyse this loss, we mustn’t play like that against any opponent.
“It was once again a lesson for us, because we just did not play as a team. The only positive is that we are only one point behind and Bayern also have two or three hard opponents in the next weeks.
“But we do not have to talk about the championship if we play like that.”
Favre selected Reus in a central attacking role against Bayern, something the 29-year-old feels does not play to his strengths.
“Everyone knows that this is not my favourite position and that I do not want to play there,” he added.
“But that should not be an excuse. The coach has to decide that.”
Favre, meanwhile, contended that his side had spent too much time fretting about the title itself.
“The 5-0 is difficult to understand but it is well-deserved. Congratulations to my colleague.
“You clearly have to say that this was a lesson for us. We had the chance to score the first goal which could have changed the game.
“Bayern kept dominating the game with more speed and better movements. They played on a higher level. It was a lesson and after 4-0 it’s tough to come back in the second half.
We have to focus on the next game. Today we were probably too concentrated and we were thinking too much about the title. We are still facing six difficult games, it was always tight until now, also the last game against Wolfsburg or in Berlin. We have to focus on the next game, we cannot change it now.
“We have to give our best but only think about the next game.”
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