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LEWANDOWSKI ON A HAT-TRICK AS BAYERN THRASH STUTTGART 4-0

German champions and leaders Bayern Munich retained their four-point cushion at the top of the Bundesliga with a 4-0 home rout of VfB Stuttgart on Saturday with Robert Lewandowski netting a hat trick after they had Alphonso Davies sent off early on.

The result left Bayern top on 61 points from 26 games with second-placed RB Leipzig on 57 ahead of their highly anticipated clash on April 3 after the international break.

Bayern coach Hansi flick congratulated his team after a stunning first-half performance which made Stuttgart look like they were a man down, with the home side dominating after Davies was given his marching orders.

“Big congratulations to my team, we controlled the game as we remained sound defensively while we took our chances well in attack,” Flick told a news conference.

“It’s not good that Davies picked up a red card so early in the game but the team responded really well, we stayed compact at the back and hit them at the other end.”

Canada international left-back Davies was shown a straight red card in the 12th minute for a studs-up challenge on Wataru Endo, with the referee initially brandishing a yellow and then reversed his decision after a VAR check.

The dismissal only galvanised Bayern with Lewandowski firing them ahead five minutes later, as he slid in at the near post ahead of his marker to fire home a low Serge Gnabry cross from the right flank.

Gnabry made it 2-0 in the 22nd after a sweeping move involving Thomas Mueller and Leroy Sane before Lewandowski added the third less than 60 seconds later when he rose to head home a Mueller cross from the right.

The Poland striker added some gloss in the 39th with a clinical left-footed finish from inside the penalty area as he pounced on sloppy defending by Stuttgart after Sane’s jinking run down the right flank.

Bayern took their feet off the pedal in the second half but despite their numerical disadvantage, they still dominated as Lewandowski and Gnabry missed chances to give them an even bigger win against the hapless visitors.

Lewandowski’s hat trick made him the joint second top scorer in Bundesliga history with 268 goals alongside Klaus Fischer, behind Bayern’s iconic former striker Gerd Mueller who scored 365.

It also means he is now just five goals off equalling Mueller’s record for the most goals scored in a single top-flight season in Germany.

Lewandowski hailed Fischer and said he hoped his individual exploits would help the German and European club champions win more silverware.

“I am proud to reach a number of 268 goals in the Bundesliga like the legendary Klaus Fischer,” he said on Twitter. “I always want my goals to help us win new titles with Bayern.”

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BORRUSIA DORTMUND SACK COACH LUCIEN FAVRE FOLLOWING 5-1 DEFEAT TO STUTTGART.

Borussia Dortmund have sacked coach Lucien Favre following a 5-1 home defeat to newly promoted Stuttgart, the club has confirmed.

Dortmund, title contenders ahead of the season, have lost their last three home games and trail league leaders Bayer Leverkusen by six points after 11 matches.

We are all grateful to Lucien Favre for his excellent work over the past two-and-a-half year, in which he and his team won two runner-up championships. As a professional and as a person, Lucien Favre is beyond any doubt,” Dortmund chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke said in a statement.

Edin Terzic, Otto Addo and Sebastian Geppert will take over until the end of the season amid a tight schedule which sees Dortmund face away trips to Werder Bremen on Tuesday, to Union Berlin on Friday, and then to 2. Bundesliga club Braunschweig in the German Cup on Dec. 22.

Terzic, a youth coach who has also worked as an assistant at West Ham and Besiktas, took charge of the Sunday afternoon training session.

“It is very difficult to take this step,” sporting director Michael Zorc said. “But we believe because of the negative developments lately that there is a need to act.”

After just one point from their last three games against Cologne, Frankfurt and Stuttgart, Dortmund have dropped to fifth in the Bundesliga and face a fight to return to the Champions League next season.

“It was a disaster. It was bad,” Favre said after the loss. “We weren’t good at winning the ball. We made too many big mistakes. It’s hard to explain. If you’re not good at winning the ball, and I mean the whole team, then you have a problem. Stuttgart played well, but we were very, very poor. You can’t get away with that.”

Despite players pushing to break through into the European elite such as Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Jude Bellingham and United States international Gio Reyna, as well as established and experienced stars like Marco Reus, Mats Hummels and Axel Witsel, Dortmund have struggled this season.

Dortmund have scored only four of their 23 league goals in the first 45 minutes and have conceded first in their last four games, of which they only won one when Haaland scored four in one half at Hertha Berlin on Nov. 22.

Favre was appointed by Dortmund in the summer of 2018 following a turbulent season at the club which saw them qualify for the Champions League thanks to goal difference.

In his first year, Dortmund led the Bundesliga for large parts of the season, but ultimately lost out on the title following a home defeat to local rivals Schalke.

In the 2019-20 season, Favre’s Dortmund once again finished runners-up, having challenged until a 1-0 home defeat to Bayern in late May following the restart of the Bundesliga amid the coronavirus pandemic.

His three-year contract was due to run out at the end of the season.

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STUTTGART 1-3 BAYERN: GERMAN GIANT COMPLETES A SPIRITED FIGHTBACK IN BUNDESLIGA.

Bayern maintained their place at the top of the Bundesliga on Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over VfB Stuttgart, thanks to goals from Kingsley Coman, Robert Lewandowski and Douglas Costa.

The hosts took a shock lead on 20 minutes, when Tanguy Coulibaly side-footed home following a great ball across the box by Silas Wamangituka.

That lead was extinguished on 38 minutes however, after Coman struck home from the edge of the box to round off a clinical counter-attacking move.

Stuttgart thought they had put their noses in front once again immediately after, but Philipp Forster’s goal was disallowed for a foul spotted in the build-up by VAR. And Bayern took full advantage, with Lewandowski drilling home a rocket from outside the penalty area on the stroke of half-time.

The hosts pushed their visitors hard in the second half, and went close to stealing a point at the end, but Waldemar Anton’s strike whistled just wide of the post.

Bayern confirmed all three points through substitute Costa’s late strike, securing Die Roten’s place at the top of the Bundesliga for another week.