Guardiola: Bayern Were Not Perfect

Both Guardiola and Mueller have bemoaned the negative tactics Bayern’s opponents are deploying this season with teams often playing a five-man defence in a bid to frustrate Munich’s star-studded attack. “It’s good to be group victor before the last match”.

The growing injury concerns are a serious problem for Arsene Wenger now. With Ozil, nothing is ever done for the camera.

Bayern sporting executive Matthias Sammer said referee Jonas Eriksson had made a poor decision. But what if Arsenal has to play the Europa League? At present Bayern seems to be the team that is in best shape of all the favorites, like Barcelona, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Paris St. Germain.

Suarez and Gerard Pique added more goals before Messi struck again.

The Bavarian powerhouse is unbeaten in the Bundesliga, which it leads by eight points after collecting a league record 37 points from 13 games.

Another eight minutes later, the score was 2-0 and Bayern were already moving out of sight. “If that happens in a knockout stage game then you are eliminated”.

Bayern now tops the group with 12 points and can not be dislodged with one match remaining.

With two blocked shots and a couple more that snuck just wide of Roberto’s net, he finally got his well-deserved goal as he nodded past the beleaguered Olympiacos keeper, only to suffer blows to his face as Roberto windmilled to make the save. “So we are going into a play-off situation and we know what we need to get so hopefully we will be ready for that”.

Zenit St. Petersburg stayed flawless in Group H, blanking Valencia 2-0 at home to grab first place with 15 points. But wins over Gent and Valencia would see Lyon qualify: could it take advantage? He denied Alexandre Lacazette a clear scoring opportunity but stayed on the pitch.

The Belgian side equalized in the 32nd minute through Danijel Milicevic’s cleverly worked free-kick. Instead, the twist came from the visitor. Boos rang out around the stadium on the final whistle.

Olympiakos have every reason to give their utmost and try to render the December 9 visit of Arsenal as purely academic, but that looks highly likely to be the game that will define their Champions League campaign. This time, it went out with a whimper. No, right here we are not talking about the future of the 44-year-old Spaniard who in a few weeks will announce if he intends staying at the German Champions Bayern Munich or leave next summer.

“So it’ll be a hard night, but more about effort and belief in ourselves than fear”.

Is this all academic anyway?

But Pep Guardiola’s side were leaving nothing to chance, and sauntered to victory thanks to goals from Douglas Costa, Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Müller and Kingsley Coman. Coman’s misplaced shot on course discovered Arjen Robben who headed into the aim space the place Mueller tapped residence into the open objective.

Willian curled a free-kick to make it 2-0 with less than 20 minutes to play and Oscar and Kurt Zouma completed the rout as Jose Mourinho’s men moved level with Porto on 10 points. The fact the conversation is even taking place shows how relentless this group of winners is. “We don’t want to take any risks, but as I said, this is a final for us, so we want him to play”.