German league 22-23
Game board
Cycle 7 – 09/17/2022
- Mainz
- 1 – 1
- Hertha Berlin
- Augsburg
- 0 – 1
- Bayern Munich
- Bayer Leverkusen
- 1 – 1
- Werder Bremen
- Stuttgart
- 3 – 1
- Eintracht Frankfurt
- Dortmund
- 0 – 1
- Schalke
- Borussia Monchengladbach
- 0 – 3
- Leipzig
- Union Berlin
- Sunday, 18/09, 16:30
- Wolfsburg
- Bochum
- Sunday, 18/09, 18:30
- P.C. cologne
- Hoffenheim
- Sunday, 18/09, 20:30
- Freiburg
ONE | system
Robert Lewandowski and Sadio Mane. Bayern miss the Pole (Reuters)
After starting the season in a dizzying way and dismantling everything in its path, something stuck in Bayern Munich and for the first time in 21 seasons, they registered a fourth league game without a win yesterday (Saturday), when they lost 1:0 away to Augsburg. Precisely after the victory over Barcelona in Bavaria, they thought that the team was back on track, but it seems that in the league for the time being things are squeaking in the team of Julian Nagelsmann.
Yesterday’s game again presented the most problematic position of the German champions – the winger. After parting ways last summer with their main goalscorer, Robert Lewandowski, who moved to Barcelona, Bayern did not sign a proven scorer and decided that the existing material, reinforced by Sadio Mane who arrived from Liverpool, could fill the lack of the Polish bomber.
At first it looked promising. The dynamism in the attack was enormous and the Senegalese acquisition found the net five times in his first six games, but then the crisis came. It started against Borussia Monchengladbach, with Jan Sommer delivering the performance of his life with a Bundesliga record 19 saves, followed by an anemic display against Union Berlin, an extra-time draw against Stuttgart and a rather embarrassing loss to Augsburg.
Mane, who of all people was supposed to be the closest thing to Lewandowski’s successor, has been stuck without a goal for five games and has looked bad, including yesterday when he missed in the 13th minute and in general threatened the goal even less than Manuel Neuer, who almost scored twice in added time. For comparison, the last time Lewandowski didn’t score in five consecutive games was sometime in October 2016.
Throughout the last period, the club’s leaders rejected the criticism that a striker was not signed, and indeed, the beginning of the fruitful season proved them right, but the last month indicates otherwise. team coach, Julian Nagelsmann, seemed already less confident after the loss: “Will we have to strengthen the striker in January? Maybe, I’ll think about it. I will also think about myself, the team, everything.”
The one who would seem locked in his position on the matter is the professional manager Hasan Salimidzic who said: “Why should I worry when the transfer window is already closed? We can score with the existing players, we just have to play better.” At the moment, the German champions actually have only two real strikers in the squad – Eric Maxim Chopo Moting and the young Mathis Tal.
