Bayern Munich: 2015 Takeaways

After putting up several powerful performances, Pep’s Bayern Munich have been absolutely outstanding this season so far. In the previous season too, the club were similarly successful but that being said, this season’s Bayern is mind-blowingly dominating and stands out on a worldwide scale. Their first league defeat coming in their 15 game, the fact that they are 8 points clear of 2 placed Borussia Dortmund and a whopping 14 points off 3 place Hertha Berlin explains what sort of domination the club has mustered this season. The kind of performances being put up by Bayern, when pitted against the other elites throughout Europe, the odds surely will be in favour of them winning the Champions League this season.

Here are a few positives from the season so for for FC Bayern Munchen.

Lewandowski

What would one say about this man? Nine minutes, five goals which together made the fastest hat-trick, four and five goal hauls in Bundesliga history. All this was in just the sixth week of the campaign, as Bayern were trailing 0-1 against Wolfsburg. As a half time substitute, the Polish came on to end Wolfsburg’s 14 game unbeaten run as he ran riot at the opposition’s goal for 8 minutes 59 seconds scoring five times in the process. The 27-year-old has been in red hot form for Bayern this season as he has put the ball past the keeper 23 times this season which includes 7 strikes in the Champions League. Statistically speaking, he has been scoring every 91 minutes for the FCB. With such a player in their roster, wouldn’t one expect such performances from Die Roten?

Injured? No problem.

The Bavarians have seen a lot of injuries this season. Key players from the roster have been unavailable for selection. Although Franck Ribery is the only long term injured player for them, on and off injury problems have haunted most of the players. Arjen Robben has suffered from a calf injury and a frustrating groin problem keeping him out of most games. Other players who have had to miss games time and again are Philipp Lahm, Arutro Vidal, Thiago Alcantra, Mehdi Benatia, Douglas Costa, Holger Badstuber, David Alaba, and Mario Gotze. Even with this long an injured list, Die Bayern have been performing at their absolute best. Kingsley Coman has been the highlight amongst the makeshift replacements and will give his coach the ‘selection headache’ once Douglas Costa and Ribery return.

More points on the table:

Interestingly enough, even after last season’s crazy start, Bayern have bettered their points haul by 1. Last season, at the midway, Bayern had 45 points and they have 46 this time round. Although this isn’t a significant improvement, but getting 46 points out of a possible 51 is a commendable feat. Bayern have lost one game and drew one whereas, last time they had drawn 3 games. This means this season, Bayern have won 15 of their games. One more than what they had done last season. Completely dominating the league, they already are 8 points clear of their nearest challengers, Borussia Dortmund.

It’s raining goals!

Die Bayern have already scored 46 goals in their 17 league matches and a staggering 19 goals in the 6 Champions League games they’ve played this season. The best part about these statistics is that the club hasn’t been relying on a single source for these many goals as both Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller have been clinical, scoring 23 and 21 goals for the club. Goals have also been scored by Kingsley Coman, Robben and Douglas Costa. To understand the gravity of these statistics, it is vital to take into consideration that Bayern have been hitting the back of the net 2.7 times every league game and a whopping 3.16 times every Champions League game.

Breaking records like twigs

Bayern opened the season by breaking a record. Their 5-0 mauling of Hamburg now stands as the biggest winning margin in the official Bundesliga season opener. On their way, The Bavarians have literally been breaking records for fun. In the fourth gameweek, Bayern won against FC Augsburg, which meant that for the first time, under Pep Guardiola, Bayern started their season with 4 consecutive victories. Come Matchday 5, Bayern and Dortmund together created history as no two teams had ever opened a season with five Bundesliga wins from as many games. 8 wins, 28 goals scored and only 4 conceded represented FC Bayern’s all-time best record after 8 weeks in the Bundesliga. No side had ever boasted a 7-point advantage at that stage of the season. Evidently, the first half of the season has been quite eventful for Die Roten and by the looks of it, the second half will be no different.