Bundesliga Player of the Month Focus – Marco Reus

We begin our focus on the player of the month from Europe's leading divisions in Germany's Bundesliga, where a young winger is drawing admiring glances.

At just 22, Marco Reus is already a hero for his club, Borussia Monchengladbach, netting what proved to be the decisive goal in a relegation play-off with VfL Bochum last term. After the Bundesliga outfit had beaten their lower division opponents in the home leg they went one down away, and were it not for a 72nd minute equaliser from Reus, would have been in real danger of the drop.

A key player at the club upon their promotion to the elite league of German football in 2008/09 as a teenager, Reus made the step up in class with consummate ease, featuring in 65 of the club's 68 top-flight matches before this season and weighing in with a Bundesliga status-saving 18 goals in the process.

The 22-year-old is an all-round attacking midfielder, most at home on the right, and has earned a senior international call-up under Joachim Low but is yet to feature for the German side.

More comfortable playing from wide, Reus is technically excellent and offers great pace and trickery. His confidence in attack can see him sway a game in his side’s favour at any time and his finishing is also strong, highlighted by his exceptional goalscoring record from such a young age. While he terrorises defenders with his pace and intent in attack, his willingness to get forward does not hinder his work rate.

He has started this season in the same vain and is WhoScored's top rated Bundelsiga player for the month of August with a score of 8.31. Here's why;

Marco Reus' fantastic average rating was helped in no small part by a man of the match display against Wolfsburg which saw him pick up a perfect 10 rating for his side. After Gladbach went 1 down early on, the home side struck back immediately, pouncing on a slip by Simon Kjaer that enabled Raul Bobadilla to tee up Reus to tap into an empty net.

Gladbach then took the lead after Reus won a penalty and the winger eventually completed a 4-1 rout with his second of the game, firing home with a superbly taken back post volley to ensure 3 points for Gladbach.

Having finished 16th last season, Reus has led Gladbach to a 5th place standing after 4 games and has ranked as the side's best outfield player in 3 of those matches. His excellent displays also inclduded picking up a rating of 8 in the surprise opening day victory over Bayern Munich and an 8.5 last time out in a narrow defeat at Schalke.

If Reus is to force his way into the German national side he faces stiff competition, though a look at his stats early on in the season suggest his progression in the set-up could just be a matter of time.

His 2 goals thus far have come from 6 shots at goal and see him as the side's joint top scorer, while despite failing to be credited with an assists this season, Reus leads the way for creativity. His 79% pass accuracy has included another joint team high of 1 accurate cross per game as well as 1 accurate long ball a match.

His lack of assists thus far is an unfortunate stat having made more key passes than any other player with 2.8 per game- the winger on the opposite flank Arango is next best with 1.8. Perhaps his most impressive attacking stat has seen him complete 4.5 successful dribbles per game thus far, again leading the way for Gladbach, though he has been dispossessed a pretty costly 5.3 times a game, an unwanted team high this time around.

However, when the youngster loses possession, he doesn't give up. His work rate and willingness to help out defensively has seen him make 1.8 interceptions per game- a figure only bettered by defenders Jantschke and Daems. For a primarily attacking player he has also weighed in with a terrific 3 tackles per game- again topped only by Jantschke with 3.5.

It remains to be seen as to what the future holds for the burgeoning prospect that is Marco Reus, but one can safely assume that it lies away from Gladbach. The 22-year-old will have undoubtedly had his suitors this summer but showed his loyalty to the club by opting to stay for another year. However, it is the general feeling that he is already capable of taking the next step up, with Europe's big hitters likely to be waiting in the wings come the end of a season which could see Reus compete for a starting berth in the Germany side ahead of Euro 2012. The future's bright!