Didi Hamann thinks Bayern Munich’s Matthijs de Ligt will have to keep grinding to lock down a starting role

Bayern Munich defender Matthijs de Ligt has been very good overall since joining the club, but did suffer a tough, reckless challenge at the end of his team’s game against VfB Stuttgart over the weekend, which proved costly in a 2-2 draw.

With Lucas Hernandez and Dayot Upamecano also playing well, De Ligt can ill-afford to make game-changing mistakes. Still, player-turned-pundit Didi Hamann think De Ligt will do great things at Bayern Munich, but it could take some time for him to become an established starter.

“Apparently, he had some fitness issues before he signed so that will have something to do with his absence. He went straight to America, but with the travelling it meant he couldn’t train that much but I think he was behind schedule fitness wise. We’re well into the season now so there shouldn’t be an issue now,” Hamann told FreeSuperTips (as made exclusively available to Bavarian Football Works). “There’s only the case of Hernandez and Upamecano playing really well. Upamecano made a mistake (against Union Berlin), so there might be an opportunity to now bring him in and play him. But there’s a lot of competition if you look at the squad, it’s probably as good as a squad as any Bayern Munich’s had in the past. If he doesn’t play next week, he just needs to bide his time and wait for his chance.”

The team is, indeed, extremely deep, but has not functioned all that well in terms of cohesion just yet. With so many players competing for time, that could be considered the downside of the squad’s depth.