Borussia Dortmund attacker Marco Reus picked an awfully bad time to find himself out a month.
The 30-year-old has been in fabulous form, with six goals and five assists in his last eight Bundesliga appearances. That all comes to a halt now as the club announced Reus suffered an unspecified muscle injury during the 3-2 DFB-Pokal loss to Werder Bremen on Tuesday.
With the Champions League knockout stages coming up in mid-February and the Bundesliga title race in full swing, Reus has found an awfully terrible time to get injured. Not only on a team level, but a personal one as well. Borussia Dortmund’s attacking talent is bursting at the seams, and that could complicate Reus’s eventual return. Jadon Sancho is on absolute fire with nine goals and seven assists in his last nine league games, new signing Erling Haaland is a goal machine, and even Julian Brandt is banging in a few strikes of late.
Mario Gotze and Thorgan Hazard will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of Reus’s injury, and should either of the two find their form - especially Hazard, who was an assist machine to start the season before eventually falling back to Earth - then Reus may find his place in the starting lineup in serious jeopardy.
During yesterday’s match, Marco Reus sustained a muscle injury that looks to keep him sidelined for up to four weeks.
— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) February 5, 2020
Get well soon, Captain 🙏 pic.twitter.com/3TyZ4qgpkZ
The blow to Dortmund is significant as well. The German club is drawn against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League Round of 16, with Reus set to miss both legs of the matchup. PSG is roasting Ligue 1, and with Neymar in spectacular form, Kylian Mbappe putting in shifts, and Mauro Icardi settled in nicely, Dortmund will need all the attacking firepower it can muster to keep up.
In addition, the Bundesliga title race is a vicious one. Dortmund sits in third, three points back of leaders Bayern Munich and two behind RB Leipzig. Reus is likely to be fit by the time Dortmund matches up with Bayern on April 4 and certainly for the penultimate match of the season against Leipzig on May 9, but nonetheless any slip between now and then could prove deadly. Reus is set to miss matches against competitive sides in Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Monchengladbach, and SC Freiburg, so Dortmund will need to make due in his absence.
