Thomas Tuchel’s mixed Bayern Munich start

TUESDAY TRIVIA Thomas Tuchel’s mixed Bayern Munich start

Seye Omidiora 12:47 - 23.05.2023

Die Bayern’s defeat by RB Leipzig was the tactician’s second in the league since replacing Julian Nagelsmann, leaving this year’s Bundesliga title race out of their hands.

What fans of Bayern Munich feared was actualised on Saturday evening when RB Leipzig got a deserved 3-1 success over the defending Bundesliga champions at the Allianz Arena.

Thomas Tuchel’s team went ahead through Serge Gnabry after the Germany international rifled in from the edge of the box with 24 minutes played, thus putting Bayern in the driving seat. However, the concession of three second-half goals saw the home side surrender that advantage.

Leipzig levelled through Konrad Laimer just after the hour mark before penalties converted by Christopher Nkunku and Dominik Szoboszlai in minutes 76 and 86, respectively, secured the visitors’ first-ever league victory at Bayern.

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Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 success at relegation-threatened Augsburg on Sunday saw BVB supplant Tuchel’s men atop the standings with one round of games to be played.

Tuchel's below-par Bayern start

That leaves the former Chelsea boss in a complicated position, having been appointed in March because Bayern felt they needed his firefighting expertise to compete in the three trophies they still had a chance of winning.

When Nagelsmann was sacked, Bayern were a point below Dortmund with a face-off between first and second to come in Tuchel’s FC Hollywood bow.

Bayern Munich got off to a good start under Thomas Tuchel

That was to be the first of nine domestic fixtures the 2021 Champions League-winning manager had to compete in with the Bavarian giants, while they had a DFB Pokal quarter-final meeting with Freiburg and a clash with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the Champions League last eight.

However, three competitions soon turned into one, with defeat at the hands of Freiburg in the cup followed by elimination by the Cityzens in Europe, leaving Die Rotten with an 11th straight title to fight for.

That now appears unlikely as they have seemingly surrendered to BVB in the penultimate round of games.

Having criticised the decision to replace Julian Nagelsmann with Tuchel with two months of the campaign remaining, the schadenfreude if Bayern loses all three titles will only get louder.

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Have Bayern been poor under Tuchel? We examine some key numbers.

Tuchel's conflicting Bayern start in numbers

  • 4 – Bayern have lost four games in all competitions since Tuchel’s first game in charge (a 4-2 victory over Dortmund) at the Allianz Arena on April 1. For context, Nagelsmann had been beaten three times (all in the Bundesliga) before he was jettisoned.
  • 2.13 - In eight Bundesliga games under Tuchel, Die Bayern are averaging just over two goals a game. Under the incumbent’s predecessor, an average of 2.84 goals were scored in 25 matches leading up to the young manager’s departure.
  • 2.55 – Bayern’s average Expected Goals (xG) under Tuchel (2.55) outdoes their mean xG under Nagelsmann (2.14).
  • 8 – FC Hollywood have scored in all eight league games under Nagelsmann’s replacement. Before Tuchel’s arrival, they had netted in all but one Bundesliga game (a 1-0 loss at Augsburg in September).
  • 37.5% - Bayern have kept clean sheets in three of their eight league fixtures under Tuchel (in 37.5 percent of their games since he replaced Nagelsmann). Before the ex-Bayern boss was given the heave-ho, this was eight shut-outs from 25 Bundesliga games (32 percent).
  • 2 – Tuchel’s Bayern have netted three goals or higher in just two games since the former Chelsea boss took the helm at the Allianz Arena (25 percent of the team’s eight games). Contrast this to under Nagelsmann, where the Bavarians scored three goals or more in 11 of 25 games (44 percent of their league fixtures).
  • 8 – Bayern have shot at goal 10 times or more in every game under their new boss. When Nagelsmann was in charge, the title holders’ shot volume dropped below 10 on three occasions — Dortmund (nine), Leipzig (seven) and Wolfsburg (nine).