From bad to worse: Bayern Munich lifeless in 3-0 UCL loss to PSG

Bayern Munich’s season gets rockier as inconsistent form leaks into the UCL campaign. PSG made the Bavarian giants look frail at the Parc des Princes.

The pressure mounts on Bayern Munich and Carlo Ancelotti himself. While blame is to be shared throughout the squad, the Italian boss isn’t doing himself any favors. PSG gave an electric and romping performance in their 3-0 win, to their credit.

The Parisian front three posed just the threat as feared and expected to the Bavarian back-line. Throughout the 90 minutes, Bayern looked utterly lost and out of ideas. There was no creativity anywhere on the pitch. PSG totally punished the Bayern squad and exploited all of their weaknesses as they appeared before them.

The match ended the way it started inside the first three minutes, and all in a performance that looked like a reverse Bayern vs. Barcelona from 2013. Like that tie years ago, what was the deciding factor?

Counter-attacks.

Carlo gets the tactics wrong

It seems there have been too many games in this young season that have already called for questions about Carlo Ancelotti’s tactics. Unfortunately, this match was no exception. In what was surely the first big test of the season, Carlo tripped up tactically.

Even before this, Carlo and his Bayern Munich squad have looked flat and inconsistent at times. It appears PSG came too soon for Bayern’s current form. The line-up saw the likes of Mats Hummels, Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry on the bench.

Granted, Robbery haven’t looked too fresh lately, but at least having Robben out wide with Thomas Müller tucked behind the striker and James on the left-wing may have been more fluid offensively. Instead, the XI had Müller and James on opposite wings with Lewandowski in the middle. On paper, most teams couldn’t ask for much more talent up top, but the result here was stale.

In defense, David Alaba saw a return, but to no success. The Austrian was frail — if not invisible — in key defensive moments. Alaba also spent most of his time firing off errant crosses at the opposite end of the pitch. The opening goal came when Alaba left his side completely open, with Dani Alves in plenty of space to easily stroke home for 1-0.

In all fairness, the whole back-line as a collective was unorganized and filled with gaps.

Another surprising decision was to exclude Hummels in favor of Javi Martínez, despite the Spaniard looking shaky so far this season. Rotation is fine, but not fielding your best players for the match you spent the last few games rotating for? Not much sense in that.

Clueless in attack

One of the most obvious issues on the day was the absolute lack of ideas up top. Lewandowski was stranded in the middle, making no significant impact throughout the entire game. James looked energetic, as is his style, but was very much stifled and frustrated, leading to a half-time sub.

Whether it was through open-play or dead-ball situations, Bayern inspired nearly nothing in front of goal. The Bavarians held the vast majority of possession, but that’s meaningless unless the players know what to do with it. Bayern Munich had 17 attempts and converted none of them.

In addition, Bayern Munich earned an insane 18 total corner kicks, and failed to make anything notable from those opportunities as well. The German champions clearly have all the tools for efficiency in attack in terms of players, but the tactics aren’t clicking. As of now, everyone looks totally lost.

Instead of creating dangerous chances by stringing together passes through the middle, Bayern Munich tried desperately to connect crosses from both flanks. This seemed like the go-to plan when no one else on the pitch knew what to do. As evidenced, the vast majority of those crosses didn’t even connect, let alone lead to a shot on goal.

David Alaba was also guilty of this. The left-back spent a lot of time in PSG’s final third, yet mostly blasted crosses over everyone’s head. While Lewandowski can be powerful in the air, Bayern pose much more of a threat creating chances through midfield, but that was another problem.

PSG exploit Bayern’s weakness on counter-attacks

Like what Bayern Munich were able to do to Barcelona in that glorious treble-winning year, PSG executed immaculately on them. For a few years now, Bayern’s key issue has been repeated over and over again. When dealing with pacy offensive players, the German giants often have trouble transitioning into defense on time.

This problem can be addressed in a couple of areas. First is obviously with the defense. Whether it’s full-backs getting caught out position and center-backs having to try and compensate, or the center-backs being slow to turn and chase the opposition, the back line is often guilty of not being alert in key moments.

Secondly, with the 4-3-3 fielded today, there were acres of space available to PSG in the midfield. Bayern Munich’s midfield as a whole was a liability. Thiago uncharacteristically failed to connect important passes and cheaply threw away possession at times while Tolisso was nowhere close to being the shield for the defense — see Edinson Cavani’s goal.

With the totally disarrayed activity in the midfield, it was always one touch, misplaced pass or clearance away for the ball to reach one of Mbappé, Neymar or Cavani in a blistering counter-attack.

Next: Bayern Munich draft Tom Starke to UCL squad

Bayern Munich are going to have to make quick fixes to their attitude and play-style before things spiral out of control. As things look now, Carlo seems to be building a mountain for himself to climb. The return fixture at the Allianz Arena needs to make a positive and strong statement in order to renew confidence and order.