Caretaker manager has brought in new rigour at Bayern, something lacking so far at Chelsea under Frank LampardBayern Munich may not have all the answers, but they know all the right questions. They can finish you in more ways than almost any other team on the planet. You play through the press and they smother you with possession. You lock the front gate and they find a way around the side. You sit deep and they weave their dainty triangles around you. You commit high and they make you turn and run. Thwart their slick passing game for one half, and they simply take you to pieces in the next.This, essentially, is what happened to Chelsea here: after maintaining a...
An indifferent victory over Paderborn raised the stakes for Hansi Flick, with a run in Europe potentially key to the interim manager keeping the jobIt’ll be alright on the night, they hope. With such a tight race at the top of the Bundesliga, there shouldn’t really have been time for a Bayern Munich dress rehearsal as they get set to restart their Champions League campaign. Yet what they served up on Friday night’s game against Paderborn felt suspiciously like one.There were plenty of fluffed lines. Bayern conceded not one but two improbable equalisers to visitors who were in the third tier the season before last, and whose annual playing budget is so small that nine first-teamers at the Allianz Arena...
Liverpool, Manchester City, Spurs and Chelsea face differing challenges in a Champions League group stage that is likely to be one of the last in the competition’s current formatThe Champions League returns on Tuesday with Liverpool back at the stadium where they won their sixth European crown last year. Atlético Madrid will represent a formidable obstacle as Jürgen Klopp and his players attempt the unlikely feat of reaching a third successive Champions League final in addition to claiming a first English title in 30 years, though of the four English teams aiming for a place in the last eight it could be argued that Liverpool have been best favoured by the draw.It is true that Tottenham’s opponents, RB Leipzig, have...
It was not a spectacular clash but an intriguing draw left us hungry for more and showed Leipzig are worthy title rivals“There was a lot in it but at the same time,” said Thomas Müller, “there was nothing in it.” One of Bayern’s very sharpest minds (and tongues) hit the nail on the head for the umpteenth time in a career every bit as interesting off the pitch as it has been on it. As Munich waited for a storm to brew, meteorologically as well as metaphorically, the Bundesliga’s big clash of the season to date simultaneously gave and took away, delivered and let down, satisfied and left you hungry for more.It felt as if the whole occasion had been...
More than 40 years since Borussia Mönchengladbach were champions, rising hopes for them are a boost for the BundesligaThis, the more gnarled of Bundesliga followers would tell you, is the real Klassiker. Years of mere intermittent threats to Bayern Munich’s dominance have made Borussia Dortmund, Germany’s most visible other club and the champions’ most frequent irritants, the default opposition for a showpiece. More than 40 years have passed since Borussia Mönchengladbach were champions for a fifth and as yet final time, an era in which the mantle of top dogs was a real back-and-forth. In the 1970s, Gladbach’s first two titles and last three were split by a Bayern run of three in succession.It may be way too early to...