Bayern Munich survived a scare at home against the relegation fighters Paderborn on Matchday 23 in the Bundesliga.
Bayern Munich played at home against Paderborn on matchday 23 in the Bundesliga. The game was closer than it should have been. The match finished 3-2 in favor of the hosts, courtesy of a late winner from Robert Lewandowski. For Die Roten, the match was a nervy affair and one that they just couldn’t put away. Paderborn played hard and made life very difficult for Bayern Munich and nearly came away with a point.
Serge Gnabry opened the scoring in the 25th minute with a beautiful solo goal in the box. He kept his composure in front of the defenders and deposited the ball in the far corner. Paderborn’s Dennis Srbeny responded with a goal in the 44th minute after Bayern’s Manuel Neuer made a horrible mistake. In the 70th minute, Robert Lewandowski scored a goal on a quick counter-attack to make it 2-1. The visitors equalized once again through Sven Michel tidy finish in the 75th minute, and then Robert Lewandowski scored his second goal of the game in the 88th minute, right before the final whistle.
Bayern looked to be in 2nd gear for most of the match after rotating a good portion of the squad. This was in part due to a couple of suspensions, and Hansi Flick also had one eye on next week’s Champions League game against Chelsea. This match ended with more questions than answers and had some interesting talking points. Here are four takeaways from Bayern’s win over Paderborn.
Forwards come to the rescue
Two players in this match stood out above the rest and were the reason behind Bayern’s narrow victory. Starting with our prolific striker, Robert Lewandowski continued his incredible season by adding two more goals to his tally, taking his season total to 25 in the Bundesliga. Both of his goals came from crosses on counter-attacks that he slotted with precision and power.
Apart from goals, it should also be mentioned that his hold-up play and willingness to go help out the midfield in tough situations is incredible to watch, given how hard Paderborn were to break down. When an opposing team is compact and is tough to breakdown, you need more players willing to help in the cause and not just stand in one spot waiting for the ball to be played to him. Lewandowski does this to great effect, and his work rate rubs off on the other players in a positive way. Bayern are truly lucky to have a player of Lewandowski’s quality and work ethic on the pitch.
The other player to mention here is Serge Gnabry. Getting a goal and two assists is a mighty impressive stat line. Gnabry once again showed how important he is to Bayern’s Bundesliga and Champions League ambitions. For his goal, the ball found Gnabry in the box, and after fighting for a bit of space, he slotted the ball in the bottom right corner. And then, both assists came from the left flank.
Gnabry is having the season of his life, scoring 15 goals and getting 10 assists in all competitions (Stats courtesy: fbRef). His consistent wing play has reduced the workload on Thomas Muller and Kingsley Coman, allowing Muller to play in the middle, and giving Coman to take time to get back to his best form.
A Unique Formation
Due to suspensions and the need to rest players before the Champions League match in the midweek, Hansi Flick fielded a new starting formation for the players to fit into. Instead of two, there were three center backs, two wing-backs, two center midfielders, one attacking midfielder, and two strikers making a 5-2-1-2. This is a drastic change from the typical 4-2-3-1 Flick normally uses, but given the players available to him, it makes sense in this situation.
Instead of playing as a center midfielder, Joshua Kimmich was used as the third central defender, with David Alaba and Lucas Hernandez to his left. Alvaro Odriozola made finally got a start as he slotted in the right wing-back position, while Alphonso Davies flanking him on the left. Corentin Tolisso and Thiago were the two center midfielders with Philippe Coutinho in the attacking midfield role. Lewandowski and Gnabry were the two forwards in this match.
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This isn’t a formation Bayern fans should expect to see very often, despite the team being solid defensively, it struggled to produce chances against Paderborn. It got to the point where Hansi Flick brought on Thomas Muller and Kingsley Coman as substitutes. As soon as these changes were made, Bayern’s offense picked up, and the next two goals were scored.
Thomas Muller in the center of the pitch opens up Bayern’s entire attack, and it’s almost like the opponents don’t know how to handle him when he’s on the pitch. Even though Coman’s final product leaves a lot to be desired, his pace and willingness to go at defenders was refreshing to see at the end of this match. Bayern are so much more comfortable in their traditional 4-2-3-1, so fans should expect to see that in their upcoming matches.
Fixing a Rotated Squad
At the start of Niko Kovac‘s first season at the helm, he believed in heavy rotation and his reasoning at the time seemed sound. The players need rest over the course of 40+ game seasons, and rotation allows each player an equal amount of game time, so they don’t get upset about not getting adequate playing time.
It’s nice in theory, but in practice, it doesn’t work because players need to have chemistry between one another, and a coach should have a go-to lineup for tough matches. After a very shaky start to that season, Kovac abandoned his rotation policy and spent the rest of the season rotating very little. Bayern went on to win the domestic double, and many people wondered if he would bring back regular rotation in a small manner.
Kovac didn’t get time in his second season to implement a better rotation policy. Since Hansi Flick has taken over, he has brought back a small bit of rotation. Just enough to keep certain players fresh, but also making sure that he fields a championship-caliber lineup on the pitch in every match.
In this match, though, Flick rotated heavily and used a completely different formation to do it. Things did not go well as there were few chances for Bayern, and it wasn’t until Bayern brought on more regular starters and a familiar formation that the team started clicking again. These matches happen regularly, where they play inferior opposition and need to field a weakened team.
If Hansi Flick is to remain manager past this season, he will need to improve the players that aren’t regular every week starters into players who can come in, and the performance levels are not dropped when changes are made. Just because a few of the bench players are in the starting lineup doesn’t mean the team should look toothless in attack and not look like it knows what it’s doing. Bayern got away with this against Paderborn, but if they are forced to go this route against tougher opposition, their performances will have to improve.
Eyes on the Bigger Opponent
One would assume that if there wasn’t a huge midweek match coming up, then Bayern would have fielded a much stronger team. But there is a big game against Chelsea on Tuesday. All week leading up to this match, the coach and players were saying how they’re taking the season one match at a time. That’s a great thing to say in public to the press, Bayern fans all saw that the team had one eye on their trip to London next week.
The team looked to be second gear almost the whole match until they needed to be in first to pull out the win. Passes often weren’t crisp and players weren’t on the same page several times throughout the match. This can all be explained by the fact that Bayern’s Champions League matches restart on Tuesday, so why waste energy on the last place Paderborn when there’s a much more important match in four days.
With players like Thomas Muller and Kingsley Coman left on the bench, the manager’s intentions were clear: be ready for Tuesday. Bayern will go back to their preferred 4-2-3-1 with Gnabry and Coman running down the wings and Muller exploiting space in the final third for Lewandowski to poach goals. Jerome Boateng and Benjamin Pavard will return to the starting lineup in defense and Kimmich will return to his usual spot in the defensive midfield role.
Bayern will be looking to do better than their embarrassing result in last year’s Champions League round of 16. Die Roten will need to be at their best and sharpest on Tuesday to get a good result at Stamford Bridge. Bayern supporters want their team to go far into the tournament and this process starts in four days.