Thomas Müller speaks on the future of Bayern Munich without Robert Lewandowski

In an interview with Sport BILD, Thomas Müller spoke on the future of Bayern Munich without Robert Lewandowski.

On whether Bayern can work without Lewandowski, Müller said that it is definitely possible. He went on to state that Lewy had good reasons to leave and that everyone has accepted his departure. However, there is an uncertainty about the future when a player with such a goal-scoring prowess is no longer on the pitch.

“We’re not playing with ten men now because Lewy is gone. Of course, a lot of balls went to him. But there will be another player there in the future. To put it bluntly: the ball stays in play and hopefully the opponent won’t always have it instead of Lewy,” he said, explaining the future of Bayern’s tactical setup.

Though it will be different without the Polish marksman, Müller believes that good opportunities will arise in the near future.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Bayern’s game was tailored to Lewandowski’s presence. However, there never has been a match plan based on solely getting the ball to him.

“But if you know that you have such a dangerous striker in the box, then at some point you consciously play the ball there and try to bring him into play. The statics of our game presentation will inevitably change now, it will be exciting to see how and where we develop on offense in the coming months. But positively exciting!”, the veteran player said, showing his optimism and curiosity for what’s ahead for Bayern’s offense.

“Our goal must be that we don’t sit together again in six months and say: Phew, now we’re missing the goals, we have a problem,” Müller declared.

“Maybe we’ll actually score fewer goals than before. But that doesn’t mean that we will be any less successful as a team. For example, Mario Mandzukic came in 2012 and replaced Mario Gomez in the center. Mandzukic wasn’t the better striker, he didn’t have better scoring stats than Mario. But somehow we were almost invincible as a team in this special treble year 2012/13,” Müller said, reminding people of the amazing exploits of the 2012-13 Bayern side.

Maybe Thomas forgets that they also had a brilliant overall squad! Not that our present squad is bad in any way but the goal output came from nearly every player back then and now... is a different story.

Honestly, I appreciate Müller for giving this interview. I don’t think a single person from Bayern has given this level of clarity on tactics and such.