Following the international break, Bayern Munich came back home Friday for a big matchup with Bayer Leverkusen. However the second 20 minutes of the first half were nearly as bad as the first 20 were good. They managed to escape giving up more than one goal by the skin of their teeth, only allowing a fantastic free kick goal that was unsavable for Ulriech.
Then they managed succeeded those 20 minutes with another five of complete dominance where they could have scored two or three more goals. But as I mentioned there are also the bad phases. Bad Phases There are far too many times where Bayern look very poor. And there are consistent characteristics of those times.
First of all, the play against the ball becomes extremely lax. The team as a whole seems to just take their foot off the gas and give their opponents an inexplicable amount of time on the ball. This has allowed their opponents to find through balls and space behind the defenders which increases the pressure and chances of errors on the defense.
Then there is the poor passing in all areas of the pitch that lead to giveaways and more chances. A big part of that is due to the utter lack of movement off the ball. When this team gets into these phases, it seems as if there are players that are moving while the rest of them are standing in a small bit of space watching the action.
For me all these are all things that Tuchel absolutely should be able to affect and change. Most of these problems, at least in my opinion, are new to the Tuchel era. He has to find a solution to find more consistency in all areas of the game or this team will be in serious trouble later in the season. Sluggish Second Half The second half brought more questions.
