Arjen Robben, David Alaba lead Bayern Munich past Stuttgart

It wasn't their best performance, but Bayern Munich received goals from Arjen Robben and David Alaba to down Stuttgart 2-0 and maintain their lead at the top of the Bundesliga table.

For the first twenty minutes of the match, Bayern and Stuttgart were content with committing silly fouls outside of their own areas. However, neither team threatened the other team with their free kicks, the majority of which ended up way over the goal.

Stuttgart launched a quick counterattack in the 28th minute with a long, diagonal pass to Christian Gentner, but Mehdi Benatia was quickly on him to shut down his route to the goal. Gentner dropped his pass back to Gotoku Sakai, and the Japanese international whipped in a curling shot from the corner of the penalty area. Manuel Neuer watched the ball float past him before skipping off the outside of the post for a goal kick.

It took Bayern 41 minutes, but they finally found the breakthrough. Juan Bernat found Arjen Robben out wide on the right side of the Stuttgart penalty area. With a double team in front of him, Robben dropped the ball back to Mitchell Weiser, but the young fullback sneaked a quick pass through the defenders giving Robben an inch of space. As we know, an inch of space is all Robben needs. The Dutchman lashed a shot over the head of Sven Ulreich and into the back of the net to give FC Bayern the 1-0 lead heading into halftime.

Pep Guardiola decided to go for the win to start the second half, bringing off Weiser for Thomas Müller. Robben was fouled by Georg Niedermeier outside the penalty area, and several Bayern players lined up for the free kick. Müller's dummy run over the ball left it for David Alaba, and the Austrian struck. The free kick beat Ulreich to give FC Bayern the two goal lead, and the English-feed announcer proclaimed that the goal was surely "goal of the season!".

Bayern did well to control the match in the second half, racking up over 70% possession. However, for all that possession, the club wasn't able to do much with it on the day. Robert Lewandowski missed two clearcut opportunities that he normally scores. Bayern will be hoping that they can help him find his form before the Champions League restarts.

The lead at the top of the table remains 8 points, and Bayern return to the field a week from today when they take on Hamburg.

Match Details

Stuttgart 0-2 Bayern Munich
Stuttgart: None
Bayern Munich: Robben (41), Alaba (51)

Bayern (3-4-2-1): Neuer - Alaba, Dante, Benatia - Bernat, Alonso, Schweinsteiger, Weiser (Müller 45) - Götze, Robben (Rode 88) - Lewandowski