Gonna have to watch this game on a train back to London from Bristol. Urgh.
Ouch. Hope the train has decent wifi or your phone data signal stays reliable!
Jerome Boateng and Franck Ribery are missing from Bayern Munich’s travelling squad for the trip to Liverpool.
The former will miss the clash at Anfield as he struggles with gastroenteritis while Franck Ribery will travel to Merseyside on his own after his wife gave birth last night. Manuel Neuer has been included in the squad and after reports indicating he might miss the game through injury, it looks likely that he will start for the Bavarians.
Meanwhile, Kingsley Coman will be assessed by Bayern Munich medical staff after training today after he picked up an ankle injury against Augsburg. The Frenchman scored the winner before being withdrawn during injury time but was able to complete a light training session on Sunday. His involvement will likely only become clear when Bayern Munich announce their team to face Liverpool an hour before kickoff.
Bayern Munich have conceded four league goals classed by Opta as being from counter-attacks. That may not sound like many, but as they only let in two in each of the last three seasons, it suggests they’re more susceptible to fast breaks than they have been in the past.
Only three teams in Germany have conceded more counter attack goals than Bayern, with just one in England letting in more. The Premier League team in question is Bournemouth, and Roberto Firmino should really have added to their tally in the final few minutes of Liverpool’s recent 3-0 win.
But it was also the latest example of how the Reds can generate opportunities on the counter. Just five teams across Europe’s big five leagues – England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – have had more shots on the break than Liverpool have in 2018/19. Bayern should beware.
PROBLEMS LATE ON
There’s also evidence FCB are flagging later in games, whether you look at simple goal stats or prefer more in-depth numbers.
Bayern have conceded a total of six goals in the final 15 minutes of their first 21 league games this season. You have to go back to 2009/10 to find a campaign where they conceded as many in the final quarter of an hour of games, and that was obviously from 34 matches rather than 21 too.
This increase doesn’t appear to be down to random chance either. Looking at the quality of shots Bayern have conceded when breaking matches down into 15 minute chunks, the highest average values per shot have been seen in the final quarter hours of each half.
Their figures for those quarter hours are higher than they have been in the corresponding 15 minutes in the last four seasons too. Is Bayern’s legendary but aging squad starting to creak a little too loudly? Kopites everywhere will hope so.
That's not idealFabinho set to start beside Matip tomorrow night according to Paul Joyce
That's not ideal
Need to take a lead to Germany; wil be tough without vvd
It's a cunning plan to give Origi a warm up game ahead of the derbyFirmino not training according to pearce
Bayern have their own injury worries as well. Let's not get too pessimistic here.
Yeah, I know that, but no fit CB's is pretty fucking bad, & then to have out most influential player outside of VVD & Allison potentially missing as well, is a fucking kick in the teeth.
At this stage of the season, with a title race to worry about, you ideally want to have little to no pressure on the second leg, whereas this is looking like it could be the exact opposite.
I don't think we'd be going to Bayern in the second leg with "little to no pressure" whatever team we had playing. They may be struggling a bit this season, but let's not get all fucking giddy
My plan is to tether off my work phone and stream on my laptop... just need to hope there is decent 4g across the country.