“We didn’t deserve to win today,” said Joshua Kimmich, Bayern’s goalscorer in their 2-1 defeat away at Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday. Despite leading at the break, the Bundesliga champions return to Munich emptyhanded and now a point behind new league leaders Borussia Dortmund, who they host at the Allianz Arena after the international break. “We’re definitely not where we want to be in the Bundesliga,” added Thomas Müller. fcbayern.com rounds up the reaction to the game.
Reaction to the game in Leverkusen
Julian Nagelsmann: “Leverkusen’s win was deserved. We were the worse team up till the last 10 minutes. Lots of things in pressing had to be done alone in the first half. We were lethargic today. We didn’t have enough power out there. We’d actually taken good steps forward in recent weeks in terms of power, quality and emotion. But today we won too few challenges. It just wasn’t good enough today.”
Thomas Müller: “Leverkusen did really well. They’re a good team on the ball, but today they were also tough to play against off the ball. Today we showed little of what’s made us good in recent games. Unfortunately, it’s a deserved defeat when you look at the whole game. Leverkusen were just more virulent today. We’re definitely not where we want to be in the Bundesliga. This was a really important game today. We knew that ahead of the game, but didn‘t show it over the 90 minutes. We now want to get through the international break without any injuries, then we’ve got the big one at home to Dortmund. But we definitely didn’t envisage going into it like this.”
Joshua Kimmich: “In general, it wasn’t enough from us today in many areas, but we were still 1-0 up at half-time. It felt like we were playing better in the second half, but then lost it because of two penalties. That’s obviously very annoying. But I still don’t think we deserved to win today. It’s tough to create 10 clear-cut chances in every game. We were 1-0 up, which should actually be enough. We had another two or three good chances in the second half. Leverkusen didn’t have the same number they’d had. It really wasn’t a lot from either side. But when we’re 1-0 up, we need to be cool and get it over the line.”
Reaction from the Bayer Leverkusen camp
Xabi Alonso (head coach): “It‘s incredible for us to have won against Bayern, against one of the best teams in Europe. We played intensely, but also did very well in possession. It was a deserved and important win for us. I’m happy. Now we need to keep going.”
Lukas Hradecky (goalkeeper/captain): “Bayern definitely didn’t have their best day, but ours was better. We can be proud of our performance. We can praise everyone today. Everyone played their part in this win.”
Robert Andrich (midfielder): “We’re very happy about the win. We changed our plan a little bit, which gave us more possibilities. We were aggressive off the ball and had lots of turnovers. But we were still 1-0 down at half-time. The way we came back and defended passionately until the end, that was great.”
Read more about the game in our report:
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