Reus ‘ashamed’ of Borussia Dortmund despite dramatic Paderborn comeback

Marco Reus said he was “ashamed” of Borussia Dortmund’s performance in a 3-3 Bundesliga draw at home to Paderborn despite his late equaliser salvaging a point.

Dortmund, beaten 4-0 away to Bayern Munich in their last match before the international break, were 3-0 down at half-time in Friday’s clash against the league’s bottom side.

Streli Mamba struck twice and Gerrit Holtmann was also on target for Steffen Baumgart’s team, while Dortmund lost striker Paco Alcacer to injury before the interval.

Dortmund improved after the break, with Jadon Sancho reducing the deficit two minutes after the restart, and Axel Witsel gave the hosts further hope by scoring with six minutes to go.

Sancho then crossed for Reus to nod home the leveller in the second minute of added time to spare Dortmund an embarrassing defeat, though the captain was unimpressed with his side.

“We can never play like that again,” he told DAZN after Dortmund missed the chance to move up to second place in the table. 

“It was an absolutely poor performance and we are ashamed. We apologise to all our fans.”

Pressure has been growing on Lucien Favre, whose side came from two goals down to beat Inter in the Champions League this month, but Reus defended the under-fire Dortmund coach.

“The coach puts us in a great position every time. We’re responsible for putting our performance on the pitch, and we do not have to talk about the coach, but about us,” the forward said. 

“If 80,000 people come here on a Friday night, we cannot offer that.”

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Dortmund will be eight points off the top of the table if Borussia Monchengladbach win at Union Berlin on Saturday.

The draw means that Dortmund spurned the chance to – at least temporarily – go second in the standings above Bayern, Freiburg and Leipzig and move within three points of league leaders Gladbach.

Favre’s side now face a tough trip to Barcelona in the Champions League, before travelling to face Hertha Berlin next weekend as they look to get their domestic campaign back on track.