On Saturday evening, Bayer Leverkusen held Bayern Munich to a 1-1 draw at the Allianz Arena, ending their perfect start to life under Vicent Kompany.
However, Die Werkself were far off their usual standards and appeared a different side to the one that played Der Rekordmeister off the park in their 3-1 victory last February.
Over the course of 90 minutes, Bayer Leverkusen recorded an xG of just 0.06 compared to Bayern’s 1.38, as well as being limited to just 31% of the ball, as per FotMob.
It is fair to say that despite last season’s dominant display, Die Werkself have been unable to keep up their momentum, while Bayern Munich have returned to their frightening best.
With Leverkusen having to play a different role from their normal ball-dominant approach, they were forced into deploying the dark arts of the beautiful game.
Speaking after the final whistle, Granit Xhaka explained why Xabi Alonso’s side looked to frustrate the hosts by time-wasting towards the end of the game:
“At 32, you have enough experience to realise that Bayern want to score the 2-1 in the last few minutes. We had to take some of the rhythm out of the game. I told Rob Andrich that one of us had to go down. He said he already had a yellow card, so I took over.”
“It was a clever and confident performance. It’s not easy to play in Munich, but they didn’t really have many chances, and it was extremely important to us that they couldn’t increase their lead over us in the table.”
While Alonso will certainly want to see more from his side as the season progresses, after their poor defensive displays against VfL Wolfsburg, RB Leipzig, and Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Spaniard would have been happy to stifle Bayern for the majority of the game.
GGFN | Will Shopland
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