Thomas Muller admits Bayern Munich are feeling the pressure

It took a lucky deflection on a Niklas Sule shot to see Bayern Munich past Werder Bremen in their 1-0 win at the Allianz Arena.

The visitors had done well to keep things level at 0-0 for the majority of the match. The three points keeps Bayern at the top of the table, but Borussia Dortmund are breathing down their necks in second place.

After the win over Bremen, Thomas Muller spoke with Bundesliga.com and admitted that Bayern are, in fact, feeling the pressure in this tightly-contested title race. When they went into the halftime interval at 0-0 against Bremen, he said, they really had to up their game as they felt the pressure of how close the match was before Sule’s goal in the 75th minute:

The pressure is there, we’re feeling it as we all desperately want to win the Bundesliga title. After half time, we had to up the pace, which we did, even though the result was still relatively close.

Muller wore the captain’s armband for 70 minutes before being replaced by Franck Ribery against Bremen, but it wasn’t one of his best outings. He did register two shots and he did have a couple of decent crosses into Bremen’s penalty box, but he wasn’t at his usual best. Niko Kovac echoed Muller’s thoughts on the match, emphasizing how patient his side had to be:

We knew Bremen would be tough to beat. We had to be patient - the red card in the second half definitely helped. I’d have liked to see us kill the game off - we had numerous chances to do so - but 1-0 is enough and we’re happy to be top of the table at Easter. We fully deserved the win.

Speaking on the matches the remain in the Bundesliga, Kovac said that Bayern have to just focus on their own matches and not worry about Dortmund’s results:

We’ve got four games left...but we have to focus on ourselves. We have to win all four games. If we do that, we’ll be champions anyway.

(Photo by A. Hassenstein/Getty Images for FC Bayern )