Frustration Continues Against Gladbach
August 27, 2022 Julian Nagelsmann put out the same team as last week to face their bogey team Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Allianz Arena. The match started off well enough with Sadio Mané earning an early corner which produced a header from that Upamecano that nearly put them ahead but Jan Sommer made an excellent save to prevent the goal.
That would become the story of this match. Sommer had an amazing game making 19 saves against the Bavarians, several of which were excellent.
Unlike recent years against Gladbach, Bayern actually played extremely well in the first half dominating the visitors. They had plenty of opportunities and actually put the ball in the net twice but both were called offsides.
Then Upamecano whiffed at a long ball which set Marcus Thuram free on goal and Gladbach up 0-1.
After the break, Gladbach increased the pressure and the match started feeling eerily familiar to recent meetings between these two. Things weren’t going Bayern’s way. They were getting frustrated. Mistakes ensued.
However, they ultimately turned it around after a period of unrest. From the 65th minute on Bayern were once again dominant and looked like the only team likely to score.
It would take till the 83rd minute however to finally get that elusive goal. Alphonso Davies drove down the wing and passed into Jamal Musiala who found Leroy Sané near the spot for a low shot into the corner of Sommer’s goal 1-1.
Bayern nearly scored the winner several times in the remaining seven minutes plus six of extra time but ultimately Sommer managed to make every save to prevent the Munich side from taking home all three points.
Three Things We Noticed
Goals Not Easy
For the first time this season Bayern struggled to find the back of the net. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise against Gladbach who we always struggle with. Still it was the first time in the post Lewandowski era that we got to see what things might look like when it gets tough.
The good news is that they still created a lot of chances. The bad news is that they didn’t convert many. Sommer played a massive role in that as the Swiss goalkeeper was excellent on the day, however there were also a lot of shots that were far too directly at him.
The use of Matthijs de Ligt as a striker at the end of the match highlighted the issue we all knew going into this season. When the box gets compact. When there’s no room behind the defense. It’s going to be extremely difficult for Bayern to find goals this season with no real target man up front.
Big Mistake
After a fantastic start to the season, Dayot Upamecano made a huge mistake for the first time this season. The missed ball that lead to Gladbach’s goal was completely unnecessary.
Instead of trying to take the ball in or play the ball laterally, he tried to pass it back to Neuer. While this is a part of Bayern’s scheme, there has to be better awareness of the situation.
Upamecano is not the only one who has been guilty of these ill-advised plays this season. Neuer has done similar things several times already this season and Hernández also has played a few bad passes back towards the keeper.
The good news though is that unlike last season, Upamecano played well the rest of the match. Last season every error seemed to send him further and further into a spiral. Today he moved on. Mistakes are obviously a part of the game. They’re going to happen. Not letting them affect the rest of your game is what is needed to play at this level and it looks like Dayot might have learned that lesson.
Fight
Given the frustrating first half that saw Bayern head into the dressing rooms down by a goal despite dominating their opposition, it would have been easy for them to collapse in the second half.
In fact, that looked very well like it might happen for a period after the restart as Bayern became increasingly upset over little adversities and Gladbach pushed to get a second goal.
Ultimately, Bayern would settle down and resume much of the control they had in the first half. This resolve and display was needed I think for both themselves and the supporters.
We’ve all grown so used to the results against Gladbach that it would have been easy to chalk up another one to bad luck and the bogey team. Instead they buckled down and ultimately earned the leveler through hard work and determination. That should hopefully bode well for this season when things get tough.
Another embarrassment for Bundesliga officiating, ‘Gladbach, and Jan Sommer.
How was there not at least 2 handballs in favour of Bayern?
How could Sane’s dummy for the Mane goal by ANY measure be considered interference?…is this not the substance of using skill and cleverness to “unpark” the wimpy. embarrassing , bus of Gladbach? Sad directive from Bundesliga to, once again, favor the pathetic, entitled, aggressive, diving young gits that are Leipzig, Dortmund, and garbagebach.
The Gbach bus was extremely pathetic…perhaps what is more sad is the insistent stupidity of Bayern not to try coughing up the ball, sit deeper, and slam these losers on our very impressive break…no…the old dreaded retain possession obsession again reared it’s stupid old head.
Jan Sommer…what a f..kin piece of s..t…why can’t this a…h.l play like this against any other team in the world?
LOSER 1St CLASS AMATEUR!! “I can only come up with great saves vBayern”…obviously this deluded moron thinks Bayern may hire him…keep dreaming…
I also see some ridiculous commentary about sommer’s amazing performance…the truly amazing fact is that he had to make this many saves v Bayern with their bus parking tactics…any team can recreate this cynically boring tactic v Bayern…the key is for Bayern to step back from this stupidity and make it work for them!!
Uhm perhaps the officiating performance was by design, as part of DFB’s strategy to keep the Bundesliga more competitive?
On the other hands I feel we need to improve the finishing a bit, Sommer was unreal yesterday with some saves, but for a lot of others he was help with weak shooting or the ball going straight to him.
Otherwise the way we played was very good I like it a lot. For example if we compare with the 0-5 defeat last year.
Mane being the top offside goal scorer does not worry me, I feel it has more to do with him syncing with the team for his run and timing (and vice versa) than anything. We are talking about the matter of millisecond here. These 5 offside goals also show his game intelligence and the (potential) ability to get to the end of the passes and score.
De Light playing as striker was fun, and it almost worked. His strike (which was save by Sommer) was a good as of any striker, had it gone it everyone would have praised Nagelsmann as a genius.
I hope the efficiency would get better when Champions League games come.