Borussia Dortmund's title hopes fade further with heavy home defeat

Borussia Dortmund were thrashed 5-2 at home by Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga on Sunday, as their hopes of catching leaders Bayern Munich slipped yet further away.

The defeat left second-placed Dortmund on 43 points, nine behind Bayern after the champions beat RB Leipzig 3-2 on Saturday. Leverkusen stayed third but reduced the gap with Dortmund to five points.

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The hosts got off to a nightmare start when they fell behind to a Manuel Akanji own goal in the 10th minute, but they soon levelled when Leverkusen's Jeremie Frimpong also fired into his own net.

Leverkusen restored their lead in the 20th minute through Florian Wirtz following a flowing counterattack and further increased their advantage with a sizzling free kick from Robert Andrich in the 28th.

The visitors quickly killed off any hopes of a second-half revival from the hosts when Jonathan Tah slammed in a volley eight minutes after the interval.

United States international Giovanni Reyna was introduced just after the hour mark for his first appearance since Aug. 27 and produced a good save from Leverkusen goalkeeper Lennart Grill.

Moussa Diaby compounded Dortmund's misery by scoring the visitors' fifth goal in the 87th minute although the hosts did manage to respond with a strike from Steffen Tigges in the 89th which was eventually awarded after a lengthy VAR review to check a possible offside.

Dortmund were missing their injured top scorer Erling Haaland and slumped to only their second home defeat in the league this season after losing to Bayern in December, having won all of their other home games in the campaign.