Thomas Müller had a direct hand in four goals as Bayern won away at Union Berlin. The 32-year-old set up three for his teammates before he rounded things off himself in the 79th minute of the 5-2 win. The only other time Müller has posted such outstanding numbers in his 14 Bundesliga campaigns to date was in the 8-0 thrashing of Hamburg on 14 February 2015. The Germany international scored two and set up another two that day.
Three assists in half an hour
The Müller Show began with perhaps one of the easiest assists of his career as he simply tapped the ball to Robert Lewandowski to bend in his brilliant free-kick for 2-0 in the 23rd minute. His second provision was far more effort as he acrobatically diverted the ball into the path of Leroy Sane in the 34th minute for him to simply put into the net from a few yards out and round off a brilliant first third of the game by Bayern. “We were dominant in the first half hour and got the goals. We were very happy with that,“ he said in summary of the impressive start.
Provider to finisher
The hosts didn’t give up, though, and Müller’s attacking quality was still needed. After Union had brought things back to 3-1, the FCB youth product helped restore the three-goal advantage when he laid the ball to Kingsley Coman on the hour mark. It was Müller’s seventh Bundesliga assist of the season, making him the league’s top provider. It’s also only the second time he’s got a hat-trick of assists in a Bundesliga game, after the 6-0 win against Werder Bremen in August 2016. Since Union still weren’t lying down, he now had to go from provider to finisher as he curled home Bayern’s fifth with around ten minutes to go.
Union complete the set
It didn’t just secure all three points but also completed Müller’s personal Bundesliga collection. The 2014 World Cup winner has now scored at least one Bundesliga goal against all 17 other teams currently playing in the top flight. He’d previously netted against Union for the reserves in the third division. “We found the right answers with the goals. We won and in the end played a convincing game,” Müller summarised, with the team player not wanting to big up his own performance.
Others have done that for him. Assistant coach Dino Toppmöller was full of praise: “Thomas is a very important player for us, a leader with a huge amount of experience. It often comes down to leaders like Thomas in a game like this. Like everyone, he put in a great performance.”
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