Thomas Tuchel confirms Matthijs de Ligt to get MRI after knee injury during Bayern Munich’s 7-0 win over VfL Bochum

Harry Kane was the star of the show with his first Bundesliga hat-trick as well as two assists in Bayern Munich’s 7-0 routing of VfL Bochum at the Allianz Arena, but it was a collective team performance that earned the three points at home on the heels of a frenetic win over Manchester United in the Champions League.

Elsewhere on the score sheet, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, Matthijs De Ligt, Leroy Sané and Mathys Tel had goals of their own in contribution to the massive win. Joshua Kimmich, Noussair Mazraoui and Kingsley Coman provided the other assists of the match, as Kane’s first goal was technically unassisted after Alphonso Davies had lost control of the ball in Bochum’s box in the buildup.

In the starting eleven, Tuchel chose to insert both De Ligt and Mazraoui into the lineup. It was De Ligt’s first start of the season and Mazraoui had not started since the 2-1 win over Borussia Monchengladbach earlier in the season as Tuchel has been using Konrad Laimer at right back on a handful of occasions and preferring a center back pairing of Kim Min-jae and Dayot Upamecano.

De Ligt put in a strong first half performance defensively and scored his first goal of the season with a finely-taken header off of a Kimmich corner, but he was replaced at the halftime interval by Upamecano. There weren’t any instances in the first half where De Ligt required treatment, but there was an instance after a clearance where he came up rather gingerly, which could have been the culprit for him taking a slight knock to his knee and requiring a halftime substitution by Tuchel.

After the match, Tuchel confirmed the knock and added that the Dutch defender will undergo an MRI scan to determine the extent of the injury (via @iMiaSanMia). Hopefully for Tuchel and Bayern, the results of the scan prove that it’s nothing serious, as it would be a major blow for Bayern to lose him for an extended period of time, especially with more English weeks on the horizon. It was also a big step forward for De Ligt himself to start, score, and contribute to a clean sheet and it would be devastating for him to have a serious injury to deal with.

Photo by DeFodi Images via Getty Images

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