Julian Nagelsmann unhappy with recent criticism at Bayern Munich

The heat has been ever so slightly taken off of Bayern Munich after a dominant display in their 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen at the Allianz Arena to snap their winless run of four matches in the Bundesliga.

Speaking with ESPN’s Archie Rhind-Tutt after the win over Leverkusen, Bayern head coach Julian Nagelsmann responded to some of the criticism that’s been lodged his way in the past two weeks. Some of it, he feels, had been a little bit ridiculous, especially the apparent furor over his wardrobe decisions on the sidelines and the rumors that they had been supposedly been lambasted by Bayern’s front office and executive and supervisory boards.

“How were the last two weeks for you? Because you’ve experienced a lot in your career already, but the wave of criticism, and even, I’d say, your answer in the press conference — I can’t remember hearing you like that before”, Rhind-Tutt said to Nagelsmann for ESPN (via @iMiaSanMia), to which the Bayern manager replied:

I was kind of crazy. I think it’s normal when you read comments about your clothes and everything, about a skateboard and I don’t know, everything that’s discussed in the media. It’s kind of crazy.

If there are questions about soccer, and the content that we do in our training, that’s no problem for me and can discuss (it) with everybody...[unintelligible as video cuts out]...my idea. But at the end, if it’s going to judge my personality or something like that, it’s kind of crazy. But the last couple of two weeks, very good, because there’s been a lot of time to analyze the games. The answers, the things in our own hands, we can solve our problems by doing things a bit better on the pitch than we did in the last couple (four) games.

We did it today better, so at the end, if there would be a bigger problem, a problem with the players, something like that, it would be worse. But at the end, I know what to do, what is to do in the future, and the players know what we have to do to get better results. Today, we did it, and we will try to do it in the Champions League as well, and the next game in the Bundesliga against Dortmund, also.

Excited for that (der Klassiker vs. Dortmund)?, Rhind-Tutt asked:

Yes (chuckles).

The coach followed that up with a similar statement posted to his Twitter account:

The last few weeks have not been easy. Little training due to the international matches, no good results in the Bundesliga. The team believed in themselves yesterday and played a very good game. I’m proud of the team and the reaction. Keep it up men!

Granted, Leverkusen were the weakest of the trio of upcoming opponents in the league for Bayern as they still have Borussia Dortmund and SC Freiburg to play, with two group stage matches in the Champions League against Viktoria Plzen sandwiched in between.

Still, Bayern desperately needed that response coming off of the international break. October is going to be a very telling month for Julian Nagelsmann and the club — and the team can now take a great deal of confidence into this crucial stretch.

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