Bayern Munich and the Robert Lewandowski dilemma
By Tim Richards
The touch-to-touch forward
What Bayern Munich lack right now is a certain breed of player that many top teams have come to use effectively over the past seasons. They need a forward who can comfortably cover every position across the final third of the pitch, like a box-to-box midfielder but in a more horizontal sense.
In their recent prime with Messi, Suarez and Neymar, Barcelona had a strike force that would interchange positions at any given moment and not miss a step. Real Madrid had the same — to an extent — with Bale, Benzema and Ronaldo. A “total football” approach to your attacking outlet causes chaos for your opponent’s defense.
With Bayern Munich, the starting forwards are Ribery, Lewandowski, Robben and occasionally Müller depending on the formation. Does having all of these players at the top of their game mean success? Domestically, almost definitely. Across European competitions, evidently not.
What sets this trio/quartet aside from MSN, BBC or whatever becomes the next big attacking group, is that those players are all really fantastic at what they do. That’s it though, they are each specifically good at what they do.
There is never any variation in what they bring to the team. Despite a few outings with the Dutch national team, Arjen Robben has primarily played as a right-winger his entire career. Similarly, Franck Ribery has spent the majority of his career on the left-wing.
Lewandowski has played and will continue to play as a center-forward from now until the day he retires because that is what he does best.
Müller is the odd one out here. He has played mainly as a secondary-striker, but also as a winger and as a center-forward. But the difference between him playing as the target man and him playing behind the target man is astronomical.
The argument that I am making is not that Bayern need to spend €150 million on a left-winger, a right-winger and a centre-forward to get individual back-ups for the sake of having individual back-ups.
They need to spend sensibly on one player that can cover all of these bases seamlessly. Specifically, someone that is versatile enough that they can get game time in every position and can fit in should one of these players be unavailable.
This versatility can be the difference between a quarter-final knock out and lifting the Champions League trophy for the sixth time. If Bayern’s star striker is injured for the first leg of the Champions League semi-final, this player steps up and does not miss a beat. If one of our wingers has to miss a game, that same player should fit in with no issues.
Bayern should not look for someone who will be happy to sit out 30+ games a season. They should instead look for someone who is versatile enough to play 30+ games games a season in upwards of 4 different positions. The best solution in my eyes…