Bayern Munich and the Robert Lewandowski dilemma

Or: How Bayern Munich may have bought the wrong player from Lyon.

Bayern Munich have a problem. The problem: they have one of the best center-forwards in the world leading their attack, Robert Lewandowski. One would assume that having maybe the most in-form striker in the world in your team would not provide any drawbacks.

You get match-winning goals, a desire to win and a relaxing confidence that all will be okay in the end. Bayern Munich’s fixtures last season against Freiburg and Hertha Berlin are prime examples of what having someone of Robert Lewandowski’s caliber can bring to a team.

So what, then, is the problem?

Ultimately, Bayern’s biggest downfall is that Robert Lewandowski is too good. He is strong, he scores a lot of goals, his finishing is sublime, he is very rarely injured and he is the perfect center-forward. And that is proving to be an issue. This slideshow examines the issues brought on by having someone like Robert Lewandowski in your squad and offers a very simple solution.

Yesteryear

With the close of the transfer window, this season marks the third in a row where Bayern Munich enter a Bundesliga campaign with only one pure center-forward. In the seasons leading up to the arrival of Robert Lewandowski, Bayern had this selection of front-men:

• Mario Gomez, joined Bayern aged 23, left aged 28, poacher, 174 games, 113 goals
• Mario Mandzukic, joined aged 26, left aged 28, hard working tough guy, 88 games, 48 goals
• Claudio Pizarro – 2nd spell, joined aged 33, left aged 36, relief striker, 71 games, 25 goals

To quickly highlight Mandzukic, he left Munich after disagreeing with the style of management from Pep Guardiola. After a reasonable season at Atlético Madrid, he found his footing at Juventus.

In his most recent season, he was shifted to the left wing to accommodate record signing Gonzalo Higuain. His work-rate, physicality and stamina allowed him to develop a more old-school style of wing-play focusing more on strength and technique rather than out-and-out pace.

The versatility Mandzukic brought to big games is something he has had in his arsenal for many years and was crucial in helping both Juventus and Bayern reach Champions League finals.

While it was utilized only a select few times during pre-season matches for Bayern, playing on the wing was a familiar option for Mandzukic from his time as a youngster with the Croatian national team. He might have disagreed with Pep Guardiola, but the Spaniard still maintains that he is one of the most hard-working players he has ever coached

To examine Lewandowski against these three players:

• Robert Lewandowski, joined Bayern aged 25, efficient and prolific, 152 games, 116 goals

If he was to be likened directly to any of these three, the closest comparison to draw would be a balance of both Marios. More mobile and hard working than Gomez, but not quite as fight-to-the-death as Mandzukic. A balance of two of Bayern’s best center-forwards in recent years sounds like a perfect cocktail for the exact striker that Bayern need.

There is still something missing, however. The 38-year-old Claudio Pizarro sadly does not quite have what it takes to be a key component at Bayern anymore. But the role that he provided is something that the Bavarians definitely need right now.

A player that gives the opportunity of respite or, in some cases, the chance to approach the game in a totally different way. This player does not have to be in their late 30s, they just have to be able to show up and do what is asked of them.

I am a firm believer that a club needs at least two strikers, even if you have the best striker in the world especially if you have the best striker in the world. One only has to look at how Bayern did when they had multiple options up front to see the benefits of having that sort of depth. That leads us to a problem that Bayern have faced many times over the past few years.

Negatives in positives

Both Pep Guardiola and Bayern Munich President Karl-Heinz Rummenigge have made statements saying that one of Robert Lewandowski’s best attributes is that he is not as injury prone as many other players.

"“He’s never injured because he focuses so much on the right diet and proper preparation.” -Pep Guardiola"

While, for the most part, this has been accurate, ‘never injured’it has often been challenged at the worst time of the season. Specifically against Barcelona in 2015 and against Real Madrid in 2017.

In 2015, Lewandowski had to play Bayern’s Champions League semi-final matches against Barcelona with a protective facial mask, having suffered a blow to the head against Borussia Dortmund in the cup the week before. While he was technically “fit” to play both legs, the disadvantages of having this obstruction surely impacted his play.

Oddly enough, two years later another injury forced him to miss the first leg of Bayern’s 2017 Champions League quarter-final fixture against Real Madrid.

Missing a difference-maker like him in the squad against a team like Madrid is something that will leave every fan wondering “what if”? Die Roten played very well over both legs and were unlucky to get knocked out the way they did.

With a fully fit Lewandowski starting the first match, who knows what could have happened? As a gifted penalty taker, would he have converted the spot-kick that Vidal missed? With a finally fit Robben and Ribery running the wings, was this the best chance for Bayern to finally beat a Spanish team?

Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

For a multitude of reasons, Lewandowski’s performance in the return leg was stopped after 88 minutes when he was replaced by Joshua Kimmich. Possibly to aid in midfield after Vidal’s unfortunate dismissal, but largely due to fatigue, Joshua Kimmich was brought on in place of a world-class striker. Versatile though he may be, a striker the Kid is not.

I do not want to put the blame of those results entirely on Lewandowski not being at 100%, nor do I want to put the blame on Kimmich not being good enough as a forward. There is a whole litany of reasons for Bayern’s exit. But ultimately, the Lewandowski dilemma is the one that appears most likely to happen again this year.

Why repeat?

But the question is “why should this happen again?” There’s a stubbornness that comes with Robert Lewandowski. This is multiplied by his troublesome agent. Together the two create a problem that hinders the club in a big way.

After last season’s complaints about not being the top scorer in the Bundesliga, as well as recent remarks about the club’s spending habits (or lack thereof), it is imperative for both Lewandowski and his agent to understand that football is a team game.

If personal plaudits are more important to this man than team trophies, any request for him to sit out a match will be met with frustration or an exit push. Even if it means that the team can develop players for the future, it is not in his interest to miss a match.

So what is the solution? Failing an uncharacteristic January spend, Bayern Munich are set to continue this season without a back-up striker, or anyone to give the Pole some much-needed competition.

Various higher-ups continually claim Lewandowski is never injured and that his deputy would have to be content sitting out 30+ games a season. So how do Bayern progress and move forward when the team’s attack is essentially in a stasis?

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…

Nabil Fekir

Debuting in the 2013/14 Ligue 1 campaign and playing as a center-forward, right-or-left-winger, secondary striker or attacking midfielder, Nabil Fekir has a very healthy return of 38 goals in 118 games.

At a rate of 0.32 goals a game, he is just shy of Claudio Pizarro’s rate of 0.3 and ahead of James Rodriguez’s 0.26 from the same time frame. Add to this a total of 30 assists across all competitions for a team that did not have a Cristiano Ronaldo or a Lionel Messi and you are looking at an impressive offensive talent.

While statistics can be misleading, these are not numbers to ignore. Debuting in the same season, Corentin Tolisso played 160 games for Lyon, scoring 29 goals and making 17 assists. A goal rate of 0.18 and an assist rate of 0.106 do not really mean a great deal considering Tolisso plays further away from goal than Fekir. But it is worth questioning why Bayern bought Tolisso, a central-midfielder instead of Nabil Fekir, the ideal touch-to-touch forward.

I would not say that buying Tolisso was a mistake. I would say, though, that Tolisso is a player that Bayern did not need. From the 2013/14 season, Arturo Vidal averages a goal every 0.16 games and an assist every 0.1 games, meanwhile Thiago has reached an average of scoring every 0.14 games and assisting every 0.18 games.

The difference between these three players is not significant enough to consider Tolisso a definite upgrade on either of them. If there was one area of the pitch that did not need to be altered in any way, central midfield was it.

The depth that Bayern have in that position is arguably amongst the best in Europe. Bayern’s downfall comes from the lack of appropriate options for the four positions up front. These four problems could be solved exclusively by Nabil Fekir.

Failing that, Bayern have the pulling power to get talented players such as Keita Balde… who has gone to Monaco. Or Gabriel Barbosa… who has gone to Benfica. Fekir stayed at Lyon, though, receiving their captaincy at the beginning of this season.

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On top of this, he has also said that he would enjoy a move to Bayern. Not having him, or even a player of his ability, in the squad this season or next has potential to be problematic once again. Bayern can control the midfield of any game they play, but if they struggle with options up front again, not buying Fekir — or a player in the same vein — will be where it all went wrong.