Bayern's recent fine run of seven wins from their last eight competitive fixtures came to a shuddering halt against bogey opponents FC Köln on Saturday, as the struggling Rhineland outfit turned the form book on its head and made it five consecutive games without defeat to the men from Munich.
The 50,000 capacity crowd at the RheinEnergie stadium saw Bayern bide their time at the start, before taking a two-goal half-time lead through clinical strikes from Mario Gomez and Hamit Altintop, Arjen Robben's stand-in on the day. Christian Clemens and Milivoje Novakovic hauled the home side back into it in a breathless 15 minutes after the restart, and Novakovic was on hand to send the home crowd into raptures with the winning goal quarter of an hour from the end.
The result, Bayern’s fifth league defeat of the season, means the champions slip to fifth in the standings on 36 points from 21 matches. The gap to leaders Dortmund is now up to 15 points, but the crumb of consolation on a poor day for FCB was that the arrears to second-placed Leverkusen remain stable at three points.
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