DORTMUND: Promoted VfB Stuttgart scored three times in 10 minutes to crush hosts Borussia Dortmund 5-1 in the Bundesliga on Saturday and maintain their unbeaten run on the road this season.

In their best performance of the season under American coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, Stuttgart rode roughshod over the Dortmund defence.

For Dortmund, it was the worst defeat under coach Lucien Favre, who is in his third season at the club, with pressure mounting on the Swiss as his team have won just one of their last five league games.

"That was a catastrophe," Favre said. "We were not good in getting possession. We made it easy for Stuttgart. We had no patience and they profited from it.

"It was not good. We were just not there. That should not happen."

Stuttgart's strong start earned them a 26th-minute penalty when Emre Can felled Mateo Klimowicz and Silas Wamangituka sent keeper Roman Buerki the wrong way with his spot kick.

With the visitors pushing for a second goal, the hosts, without injured top striker Erling Haaland, struck against the run of play when Giovanni Reyna latched on to a pinpoint Raphael Guerreiro cross to chip the ball over the Stuttgart keeper.

But a mistake by Guerreiro on the edge of the box in the 53rd sent Wamangituka through for his seventh goal of the campaign.

Philipp Foerster, in his second start for Stuttgart, made it 3-1 on the hour before teenager Tanguy Coulibaly added another goal three minutes later from a Jude Bellingham mistake, with Dortmund's defence in complete disarray.

Nicolas Gonzalez added the fifth goal in stoppage time after yet another Dortmund error.

Dortmund have now lost six of their eight games at home without fans. They had lost just one in 32 at home under Favre with fans in the stands.

"Stuttgart were better than us in every area," said Dortmund captain Marco Reus. "We are not a team that defends well, we have to say that. Overall it was a deserved win for Stuttgart and for us it was disgraceful."

The Ruhr valley club, who have now gone three league games without a win, slip to fifth place on 19 points, while Stuttgart move up to sixth on 17. Bayern Munich lead the title race on 24 after their 1-1 draw at Union Berlin.