Bundesliga Bulletin: Hummels and Bayern blinded by Dortmund

Good week for: The Bundesliga and fans of a title race, Luka Jovic, Borussia Dortmund, Alassane Plea, Markus Weinzierl, Reiss Nelson, Luka Jovic

Bad week for: Werder Bremen, Niko Kovac, Hertha Berlin, Nuremberg, Mats Hummels

The lowdown:

- Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich delivered one of the most dramatic Bundesliga contests in recent memory. The hosts eventually emerged as 3-2 winners, but Bayern looked better than they have in months. Marco Reus scored two, as did Robert Lewandowski, but Paco Alcacer (of course) had the last laugh in a game that saw incredible misses, disallowed goals and brilliant blocks. The title race is on!

- Alassane Plea bagged a hat trick to fire Gladbach in to second, just four points behind Dortmund. The Frenchman has been in superb form since arriving from Nice and while Bremen's early season form has tailed off, Gladbach are shaping up to be real contenders.

- Stuttgart and Düsseldorf got huge wins in their fights against relegation. Stuttgart finally scored under new head coach Markus Weinzierl, and Düsseldorf put four past a surprisingly poor Hertha to break a run of six consecutive defeats. The bottom six are now separated by just three points.

- After the thrills and spills of Der Klassiker, the games between four more of the Bundesliga's representatives in Europe were more sedate and straightforward affairs. RB Leipzig had no trouble dispatching a wretched Bayer Leverkusen side 3-0 on Sunday before Frankfurt repeated the trick against a typically toothless Schalke. While the two clubs that changed their coaches in the close season (Frankfurt and Leipzig) are in the chasing pack, the two who appeared most set to kick on are looking down rather than up.  

The quotes:

"I will have a glass of red wine tonight." - Lucien Favre knows how to celebrate a win against Bayern.

"It's too early to talk about whether we can become champions." - Marco Reus is taking things slow, but he may be in the minority.

"The lad is a beast. He's a machine. He's unstoppable." - Julian Nagelsmann on Brazilian forward Joelinton.

"What he looks like in the shower, I don't know. I don't shower with the lads." - Werder Bremen boss Florian Kohfeldt when asked about Max Kruse's physical fitness.

"We can be satisfied with the performance. It was our best match since Schalke [on September 22], in terms of technique, fighting spirit and tactics, especially in the first half." - Niko Kovac does his best to put a positive spin on defeat.

"If there's anyone who doesn't get what is at stake here, then they'll never get it. The thing that we absolutely wanted to avoid has happened." - Joshua Kimmich is a little more direct than his boss.
 

The stats:

- Reiss Nelson scored his sixth Bundesliga goal in Hoffenheim's 2-1 win over Augsburg, meaning he's the second highest teenage goalscorer in Europe's top five leagues behind Kylian Mbappe (11). 

- Borussia Dortmund's substitutes have now scored an incredble 18 goals between them in all competitions this term. That's almost twice as many as any other team's replacements in the major European leagues.

- Luka Jovic's brace for Frankfurt means he tops the scoring charts with nine goals. The Serbian has found the net every 62 minutes, but that looks positively pedestrain comapred to Paco Alcacer. The Dortmund frontman has scored a goal every 29 minutes. 

The fans:

While the competition on the pitch was intense, there was one area of agreement among the 81,365 fans at Signal Iduna Park on Saturday. Fans of both Bayern and Dortmund held up banners expressing their distate at a possible European Super League.

The weird:

Mats Hummels had a bit of a stinker against his old club on Saturday and the Bayern Munich man blamed illness for an error-strewn display.

Hummels said he started to feel unwell on Friday, then felt "really bad" before kickoff and his vision "was all dull and blurry" at the break. But the experienced defender started the game and came out for the second half despite the obvious issues. He was eventually replaced on 66 minutes by fellow Germany international Niklas Süle, whose presence on the bench was a clear indication Hummels' participation was far from essential.

If Hummels' desire to play in such a big game is understandable, the notion that he can perform with impaired vision against Reus, Alcacer and co. seems bizarre, as he belatedly acknowleged: "I'm angry with myself that I did not say at halftime 'I'm not going out'," Hummels said.