Five observations from Bayern’s late win over Hamburger SV

Franck Ribery reminds us that Kingsley Coman is still raw

When Franck Ribery entered the pitch in the 61st minute, his directness and dribbling broke down the up-to-then impressive Gotoku Sakia. It further underlines how far Kinglsey Coman has to go. I, and almost everyone else, have been highly enamored of Kingsley Coman ever since he joined Bayern Munich but it helps to remember that he’s still just 20.

Coman was largely neutralized by Sakai and while he received next to no help from the midfield or from David Alaba, that shouldn’t be an excuse for the player who is expected to stretch the defensive lines and help transition the team forward.

Franck Ribery brings an extensive wealth of experience and if he’s capable of remaining healthy, having the two of them together is definitely getting the best of both worlds for Bayern.

Thiago Alcantara is still a complete enigma

Thiago Alcantara is still a complete mystery to me. He can cobble together an impressive performance like he did on Wednesday against Hertha BSC and then come into the Hamburg game and be largely useless. His passing was suspect at times, his defensive cohesion with Hummels and Martinez was basically non-existent, and he was complicit as part of a midfield that spent 60 minutes doing almost nothing.

Then in the 88th minute, he can uncork a side footed 70-yard volley pass directly to the feet of Franck Ribery to start the sequence that would provide the game winning goal.

Is Philipp Lahm starting to decline?

This is probably the beginning of the end for Philipp Lahm. While he’s had some very good games this season at rightback, he’s also put together some real duds. This was one of them. A central part of Ancelotti’s gameplan is for Thomas Müller to tuck into the middle to form a strike partnership with Robert Lewandowski leaving the rightback to control the entire right side of the pitch.

Lahm today notched the most passes on the team, but only at an 81% success rate and was hardly ever able to control his side of the pitch. He pulled up on many balls sent his way that in year’s past he would have easily landed. He was largely incapable of keeping up with Bayern’s explosive attacks in the second half.

Hopefully, this is just some residual knock on from his illness last week and Lahm is back to his old self on the other side of the international break, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Renato Sanches needs vastly more time with this team

Renato Sanches still doesn’t any cohesion with his Bayern Munich teammates. It took Arturo Vidal nearly eight months to find the rythmn last season and it will probably take Sanches that amount of time or longer this season.

I hate to consider writing off this season for Sanches after the stellar play he exhibited at Euro 2016 for Portugal, but after four completely ineffective performances he’s definitely not remaining high on the list of players I’m going to consider critical to Bayern’s success this season.

Rene Adler is back

Hamburger SV is a really bad team. If they try to play outside of the highly compact and defensive manner which they brought to bear against Bayern, they get blown out of the water. But despite those issues, if Rene Adler can keep playing like he did today, that maddening clock in Hamburg is going to continue ticking right along.