Robert Lewandowski pleased with Bayern Munich’s dominant display in 5-1 win at Bayer Leverkusen

Any lingering shreds of doubt from the 2-1 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt before the international break were put to bed with Bayern Munich's dominant 5-1 win at Bayer Leverkusen. Braces from Robert Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry and a goal from Thomas Muller inside of the first 45 minutes at the BayArena meant that Patrick Schick’s goal in the 55th minute was nothing but a mere consolation for die werkself. The result took Bayern back to the top of the table after Borussia Dortmund had temporarily leapfrogged them with their 3-1 win over Mainz on Saturday.

Coming into the Leverkusen match, Lewandowski had gone two Bundesliga match weeks in a row without a goal, which, for someone who scores as regularly as he does, was far more of a narrative than it should’ve been. He rarely goes that long without scoring, but he did provide the assist for Bayern’s lone goal against Frankfurt. At Leverkusen, he returned to his usual, scoring ways and went level with Erling Haaland at the top of the Bundesliga’s scorers chart with 9 goals a piece.

Speaking after the dominant display, Lewandowski said he was very pleased with the effort his side put forth away from home, especially in the first half. He applauded the way Bayern didn’t take their foot off of the gas after going 1-0 inside of the first 5 minutes, and subsequently, 2-0 up within the opening half hour (tz). “Five goals in 45 minutes, that shows what great football we played. We wanted to add more after the first and the second goal and didn’t switch back. After that it was clear that we would take the three points with us. In the second round we played it down easily,” Bayern’s Polish ace explained.

Not switching off after the first two goals was crucial for Bayern. They put the match to bed in quick succession after Lewandowski’s brace inside of the first half hour. For Bayern’s third and fourth goals, Thomas Muller scored and assisted within a matter of approximately 90 seconds. Niklas Sule had done the hard work and Muller was lucky to have gotten a touch on to wrong-foot Lukáš Hrádecký for Bayern’s third, but nothing can be taken away from the sublime ball he played Gnabry just moments later for Bayern’s fourth, and Gnabry’s first of the match. With goals number 2, 3, 4, and 5 coming in the span of just 7 minutes, Bayern had essentially put the contest to rest before the halftime whistle had even gone and Julian Nagelsmann was able to give some of the players a much needed rest ahead of the SL Benfica clash midweek in the Champions League.

In addition to the Bundesliga matches against SpVgg Greuther Fürth and Eintracht Frankfurt, Lewandowski also failed to find the back of the net for Poland for their World Cup qualifying wins over San Marino and Albania during the international break. Four matches without a goal is something that rarely happens for Lewandowski, but when he was asked about his brief drought, he said that the expectation for him to score is actually a type of pressure that he enjoys having. “Which four games? Do you mean in training? (laughs). Personally, I am almost happy when people see when I will score the next goal. That shows what expectations they have of me. Sometimes there are phases when the ball doesn’t fall in front of your foot, you have to be patient. Today it worked twice again,” he said.

What a way to break the mini drought, as well: