Kagawa keeps Dortmund on top; wins for Bayern, Gladbach

By Barry Whelan Feb 11, 2012, 19:35 GMT

Berlin - Borussia Dortmund stayed two points clear of Bayern Munich at the top of the German Bundesliga with a 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen Saturday.

A Shinji Kagawa goal just before half-time gave Dortmund their fifth successive league victory, moving Juergen Klopp's side to 46 points.

The Bundesliga champions have now also equalled the club record set last season of 15 matches without defeat.

But Bayern kept pace and defended second spot with a comfortable 2-0 home win over lowly Kaiserslautern thanks to first-half headed goals from Mario Gomez and Thomas Mueller.

Borussia Moenchengladbach moved to third, a point behind Bayern, with a convincing 3-0 win over Schalke, who drop to fourth, two points behind Gladbach.

The biggest crowd of the day - just over 80,000 - was at the Signal Iduna Park ground to see Dortmund continue their impressive run which on Tuesday also took them into the semi-finals of the German Cup.

However it was a poor game of few chances, with Kagawa's goal shortly before the break one of the few bright spots.

The Japanese midfielder took a pass from Jakub Blaszczykowski, ran into the penalty area and cut inside Bastian Oczipka on the right to find the net with his left foot.

'A home match against Leverkusen is always difficult. They had relatively a lot of defensive players which made it awkward for us,' Klopp said.

'We scored the decisive goal and it was a very good home game against a good opponent. We knew we would have to work hard for a win today.'

For Leverkusen there was still no place for Michael Ballack, with the former Germany captain again an unused substitute.

In the battle between the teams third and fourth, Marco Reus put Moenchengladbach ahead against Schalke after two minutes, before Mike Hanke in the 15th minute after playing one-twos and Juan Arango in the 32nd made it a comfortable victory - the sixth in seven games in league and cup.

Schalke defender Benedikt Hoewedes said the team failed to compete and lacked structure in the first half.

'Gladbach could do what they wanted and the result was we conceded the three goals,' he said. 'The first half wasn't worthy of a Schalke team.'

Elsewhere, Austrian Martin Harnik bagged three goals as VfB Stuttgart thrashed Hertha Berlin 5-0, with Vedad Ibisevic and Japanese striker Shinji Okazaki also on target.

Hertha, who had Andreas Ottl sent off after half an hour, have now lost all four of their league games since appointing Michael Skibbe as coach to replace the sacked Markus Babbel.

Babbel meanwhile made his coaching debut for Hoffenheim with a 1-1 draw at fifth-placed Werder Bremen.

The visitors led through a Jannik Vestergaard header in the fourth minute but Bremen snatched a draw with a last-minute goal from substitute Marko Arnautovic.

Mohammed Zidan gave Mainz a seventh-minute lead against Hanover but the visitors came away with a point thanks to an 89th-minute equalizer from Artur Sobiech, four minutes after the Polish strikler came off the bench.