After delivering a gritty win against FC Barcelona on Tuesday, Bayern Munich failed to build on this result by beating Augsburg on Saturday. The defending Bundesliga champions made things worse for them in the league as they suffered a 1-0 defeat against Augsburg. Courtesy of this result, Die Roten slipped to the fourth position in the points table.
Augsburg thoroughly deserved the victory as they made things difficult for Die Roten in both boxes. Julian Nagelsmann’s team is currently on a winless run of four games in the Bundesliga, which has led to intense criticism of his team selection and tactics. We look at the three key talking points from the narrow defeat against Augsburg on Saturday.
Lack of cohesion in the attack
Bayern recorded an xG of 1.76 against Augsburg on Saturday, but it was still not enough to find the equaliser or win the game. Augsburg had a marginally higher xG than Die Roten. The perseverance of the hosts was rewarded with a well-worked goal. Apart from generating a higher xG, Augsburg’s attack had more cohesion than Die Roten.
Rekordmeister saw several moves halted in the final third due to poor communication attacking players. The promising build-up in the attack often broke down due to poor runs or over-hit passes. The lack of a focal point in the attack also hampered Rekordmeister. After scoring 15 goals in the first three league games, Die Roten has managed only four goals in the following four league games. There has been a lack of cohesion and coordination in the attack, which needs sorting sooner rather than later if Bayern wants to retain the Bundesliga title. (Stats courtesy: FotMob)
No control over the tempo of the game
The lack of cohesion was not the only problem for Bayern against Augsburg. The defending Bundesliga champions also struggled to control the tempo of the game. Players were trying to execute a risky pass every time, which allowed Augsburg to win the possession and pile pressure on Die Roten.
The lack of control in the game against Augsburg was evident throughout the game. Bayern should have slowed down things at times to change the flow of the game instead of trying hard to create chances every time they had the ball. Augsburg thrived in the chaos and kept on creating good chances against Bayern.
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International break coming at the right time for Julian Nagelsmann
A good week ended on a sour note for Bayern. The win against Barcelona in the Champions League on Tuesday should have been the ideal platform to gain some momentum in results and performances. However, things went miserably wrong for Die Roten against Augsburg.
The international break comes at the right time for Julian Nagelsmann. The German coach gets the necessary time to reflect on what went wrong for Bayern in the Bundesliga over the last three weeks. Die Roten will be hoping to break the poor run of form in the league when they host Bayer Leverkusen on September 31.