Bayern Munich’s perfect start to the season under Vincent Kompany came to an end with their 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen at the Allianz Arena over the weekend, but their performance was quite arguably deserving of three points. It took two spectacular goals from Robert Andrich and Aleksandar Pavlović to get passed Manuel Neuer and Lukas Hradecky, respectively, and there was hardly either keeper could do to stop said attempts. From Bayern’s point of view, with the number of chances they created, they surely would have wanted to score more than once and come away with maximum points, but that still cant take away from the positive performance they put forth.
On the overall balance sheet, Bayern out-shot Die Werkself 18-3, and one of Leverkusen’s three shots was from close to half field, so Kompany was pleased with the fact that his side was able to keep the reigning Bundesliga champions relatively quiet on the attacking front. He would have hoped for a clean sheet, but there was no denying how well hit Andrich’s shot was, having also travelled through a great deal of traffic in Bayern’s box en route to goal.
To date, Bayern have kept a total of two clean sheets across all competitions, but there have still been significant improvements from a defensive standpoint. Dayot Upamecano and Kim minjae have become Kompany’s preferred center back pairing, both of whom struggled for large portions under Thomas Tuchel last season. The previous Bayern manager’s preferred pairing had been Eric Dier and Matthijs de Ligt, the latter of whom is now with Manchester United.
After the Leverkusen draw, club CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen spoke highly of the improvements he has already seen so far this season with both Upamecano and Kim. “Min-jae and Upa played an excellent game [against Leverkusen]. Our centre-backs were really good. First of all, I’m happy for both of them. They were both criticized last season, and they certainly didn’t perform at their best in a few games. It’s just nice that Min-jae came back with new self-confidence after the trip to Korea, that he has the coach’s trust, that the coach has put the two of them up as his preferred duo, even against public opinion, he always played them. And you can see that they are developing more and more joy in playing and working together. And that’s nice,” he enthused to Abendzeitung’s Maximilian Koch (via @iMiaSanMia).
Both before and after the upcoming international break, Bayern have a series of English Weeks, but only time will tell how much Kompany will choose to rotate Upamecano and/or Kim out of the back line to preserve them as much as he can. He will soon welcome the return of Hiroki Ito, who has been out of action since the middle of preseason after sustaining a significant injury in the 1-1 friendly draw against FC Duren in Tegernsee.
