Bayern Munich: Key takeaways from crushing defeat in Bochum

Matchday 22 saw VfL Bochum stun the reigning Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich. The Bavarian club struggled on Saturday as Bochum was able to ease into a 4-2 win. From the sloppy defense to the questionable coaching, a lot of factors can be called on for Bayern’s poor performance.

Struggles with pace in the backline

After quickly going up 1-0 from a Lewandowski goal, form rapidly fell for the Bavarians. It became very obvious that the Bayern defenders were greatly struggling against the direct attack. Bochum would continuously play a long ball straight through the middle and have the fastest guy chase it.

Bayern really misses the pace of Alphonso Davies, being able to outrun an attacker he comes up against. Sadly, the Canadian international will be out until as long as April. Since Davies has been out, Bayern has been conceding an average of two goals a game, an extremely rare stat for Bundesliga champions.

The need for two holding midfielders 

Julian Nagelsmann’s decision to play the first half with two central attacking midfielders in Thomas Muller and Leroy Sane will be heavily criticized based on the outcome of this game. Playing one holding midfielder as opposed to two left too much space for Bochum to play those long, forward-facing through balls.

The amount of space that the Bochum attack had, played hand-in-hand with their last two goals. With two attacking midfielders, it was a struggle to close down the ball in time. The center-backs were getting outnumbered in large spaces due to the lack of shielding from midfielders. Nagelsmann may go back to playing a two-man midfield in the upcoming games.

Ulreich has big shoes to fill

It was also very evident that Bayern’s starting keeper Manuel Neuer is going to be truly missed while he is out recovering from surgery. The man between the sticks on Saturday- Sven Ulreich didn’t make any direct mistakes, but there were many occasions that it was clear his positioning is far inferior to Neuer.

A game like this could really put Ulreich’s future at the club into perspective, especially with a contract expiring in June and the young talent of Alexander Nubel flourishing out on loan at Monaco. With Neuer being sidelined for close to a month, Ulreich has four to five more games to prove his worth at the club if an extension is what he desires, but conceding four goals is not the best look during his second start of the season.

All being said, Bayern Munich is going into a very interesting midweek game against RB Salzburg in the Champions League Round of 16. After conceding six goals in the last two games, Bayern will have to come up with some way of solidifying that defensive front.