Bochum 0 – 5 Bayern: Bavarians start to bounce back with a good win after the beating in Spain 

This article written by Rainer Pompermayer

The Belgium coach sent a pretty similar first eleven as in the recent weeks, but with Laimer at right back in Guerreiro place, Coman instead of Gnabry and Musiala back in the first eleven after being out in a couple matches due an injury. 

In the first half, the Bavarians controlled the match, and managed to take the lead with two goals from set pieces, one of them with a nice Olise direct shot and the second with Musiala, after a good assist from Kimmich.

In the second half, Bochum seemed a bit more dangerous in the first minutes but Bayern completely took control of the match with a Kane goal, after a good play by Musiala, and extended his control with two beautiful goals, one from Sané and one from Coman, also finishing the match with a unusual clean sheet. 

Things We Noticed:

Jamal continues to be a game changer

Even though the opponent level was way different than in recent weeks, having Musiala back in the first eleven was a complete game changer for Bayern. The young german managed to get a goal and an assist, besides having another 2 key passes, being fouled a couple times and winning a good amount of duels in the attacking area.

With so many attacking threats, some people might think that Jamal is just another player in the Bayern attack, but even with Bochum having their fair share of problems, the player showed that his absence was one of the main reasons Bayern suffered so much in recent weeks against the stronger opponents. 

Rotation in defense at least

One of the good things to see today, after Bayern having so many defensive problems in the defensive midfield and all over the defensive line against Barcelona, was some rotation in the defensive areas. Laimer, Goretzka and Dier were all given an opportunity to show their abilities today, with all the defensive lapses in current weeks we all know that we will never ever single set of players if we want to have a good run across all competitions this season, and it seems that Kompany is slowly learning this. 

Besides this, Kim, Upamecano and Palhinha all had decent matches, while Kimmich bounced back with a good display, after the horrible display against the Spaniards on wednesday. So, finally some relief today in the defensive areas for Bayern fans.

Good win of course, but an expected one

Of course a 5:0 win away from home is always a good result, and of course it is good to see that with this win Bayern is still the Bundesliga leader in first place, tied with Leipzig, BUT we need to highlight that this is an expected result against a Bochum that is struggling so much this season. After the draws against Leverkusen and Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, and the losses against Aston Villa and Barcelona in the Champions League, anything besides a win today would raise all the alerts at Sabener Strasse.

This win today definitely sounds like a relief for Kompany and the players, but good wins against the Bochum’s of the world are almost a given at Bayern. If the team continues to have good wins against weaker sides and “fail” against stronger opponents, and we continue to see abysmal displays from some players like what we saw from Kim, Kimmich, Upanecano and Neuer against Barcelona, we can expect a lot of noise and critics in the coming months…

Match Facts:

Bochum: Drewes – Oermann (Daschner 61’), Ordets, Medić – Passlack (Gamboa 46’), Mašović, Sissoko (Pannewig 85’), Losilla, Wittek – de Wit (Miyoshi 72’)- Broschinski (Hofmann 72’)

FC Bayern: Neuer – Laimer, Upamecano, Kim (Dier 78’), Davies – Kimmich, Palhinha (Goretzka 61’) – Olise (Sané 61’), Musiala (Müller 61’), Coman – Kane (Tel 69’)

Goals: 0:1 Olise (16’), 0:2 Musiala (26’), 0:3 Kane (57’), 0:4 Sané (65’), 0:5 Coman (71’)

Yellow cards: Passlack (12’), Musiala (45’+1)