Borussia Dortmund defender Mats Hummels left fuming after their 4-2 defeat against Rangers in the Europa League
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Published 17/02/2022 at 21:28 GMT
Giovanni van Bronckhorst's team are in pole position to make it through to the last-16 of the competition after goals from James Tavernier, Alfredo Morelos and John Lundstram contributed to a dominant performance in what was the 1000th match at the Westfalenstadion. Hummels says Dortmund are making the game "too complicated". The second leg of the tie takes place at Ibrox next Thursday.
Mats Hummels
Image credit: Getty Images
Borussia Dortmund centre back Mats Hummels was left fuming with his team’s performance after they were left with a lot of work to do in the second leg of their Europa League last-32 tie with Rangers.
The free-scoring Scottish Premiership champions take a 4-2 lead back to Ibrox after crashing the party as Dortmund will be left with bad memories of their 1000th match at their stadium, the world famous Westfalenstadion.
Captain James Tavernier gave the visitors the lead from the penalty spot following a clear handball from Dan Zagadou, before Alfredo Morelos doubled their lead before half time.
John Lundstram’s stunning strike extended Rangers’ lead, but Jude Bellingham pulled one back just minutes later to give the home side hope of a comeback.
However, to rub salt in the wound for the home side, Morelos let fly with a shot that was dragging harmlessly wide until it took a deflection off Zagadou - who will want to forget this match quicker than most - and nestled in the net for a fourth for Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side.
The one positive point for Dortmund - who were without star man Erling Haaland - is that they are not out of the tie thanks to Raphael Guerreiro’s exquisite strike eight minutes from time.
Speaking after the game, Hummels struggled to get his head around how bad his team was, saying, "We’re playing an awful lot of nonsensical football, a lot of illogical football and making our opponents so strong. Our football is also too complicated. If we play this way, we’ll sometimes win and sometimes lose but over the piece we won’t have success."
The thing worrying Hummels most is the familiarity of the story, with it being less than two week since they were thrashed 5-2 by Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga.
“If you look at the Leverkusen game, we conceded four goals after unnecessarily losing the ball”, he said.
"That happened with the first, second and fourth goals here. I think we know what our problem is. The coach mentions it often enough.”
Marco Rose will no doubt have further words to add to those of Hummels as they look for a drastic turn around when they travel to Glasgow next week in an attempt to save their place in the competition.
- - -
Watch every moment of Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on discovery+.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement