BERLIN – Borussia Dortmund set a new club record in routing ten-man Eintracht Frankfurt 4-1 on Sunday as the Bundesliga’s top-scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored his 18th goal in 16 games.
Second-placed Dortmund’s victory gave them a club record seventh win and one draw at home, their best start to a season, as Thomas Tuchel’s side came from behind to floor strugglers Frankfurt.
Eintracht took the lead when captain Alexander Meier finished off a counter-attack on seven minutes before Henrikh Mkhitaryan equalised for Dortmund on 24 minutes.
Frankfurt were reduced to ten-men when midfielder Slobodan Medojevic was sent off for fouling Gonzalo Castro in the area on 44 minutes, but Aubameyang drove the resulting penalty wide as it finished 1-1 at the break.
Aubameyang made amends for his earlier miss by converting Shinji Kagawa’s pass on 57 minutes while Dortmund captain Mats Hummels made it 3-1 with a long-range strike just four minutes later.
Shortly before the final whistle, Adrian Ramos grabbed Dortmund’s fourth just minutes after coming off the bench to seal the victory which left Dortmund five points short of leaders Bayern Munich.
Aubameyang is on course to break Gerd Mueller’s record of 40 Bundesliga goals in a single season. At the same stage of the 1971/72 season, Mueller had scored 17 goals for Bayern Munich.
Earlier, Brazilian winger Caiuby hit a late winner as struggling Augsburg shocked Schalke 2-1.
Hosts Augsburg took the lead when Dominik Kohr’s strike from outside the area cannoned off Hong Jeong-Ho to wrong-foot Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Faehrmann on 34 minutes.
It was centre-back Hong’s first Bundesliga goal in his third season with Augsburg and Sead Kolasinac equalised before Caiuby fired home at the far post in the 92nd minute to give Augsburg their first home league win since September and lift them up to 13th.
Schalke drop to eighth with just one league win in their last seven games to put pressure on coach Andre Breitenreiter.
On Saturday, Robert Lewandowski and Philipp Lahm netted as leaders Bayern Munich laboured to a 2-0 win against Ingolstadt to get back on track after last week’s shock defeat at Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Gladbach crashed to their first defeat in 11 league games under coach Andre Schubert in a 5-0 hammering at Bayer Leverkusen, for whom Javier Hernandez claimed a hat-trick.
‘Chicharito’ needed just 13 second-half minutes to score his three goals with ex-Germany striker Stefan Kiessling also scoring either side of half-time for Leverkusen, who are sixth after only their second win in their last nine games. Gladbach are fifth.
Hertha Berlin took the chance to leapfrog Gladbach into third when they romped to a 4-0 win at Darmstadt as Bosnia striker Vedad Ibisevic scored twice, Marvin Plattenhardt hit a free-kick and Salomon Kalou netted a fourth.
Fresh from Tuesday’s Champions League win over Manchester United, which confirmed their place in the last 16 as group winners, fourth-placed Wolfsburg laboured to a 1-1 draw at home to Hamburg.
Werder Bremen continue to hover just above the relegation places after a 1-1 draw at home to Cologne as Nigeria striker Anthony Ujah had a first-half penalty saved for the hosts.
Hoffenheim enjoyed their first win since September when Jonathan Schmid’s first-half goal sealed their 1-0 win at home to Hanover 96 which lifted them to 17th.
Stuttgart are bottom again after their goalless draw at Mainz on Friday. – Nampa-AFP
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