Bayern Munich opened a 10-point lead in the Bundesliga on Saturday with a 1-0 win at Hertha BSC to recover from their midweek defeat at Manchester City.
With nearest Bundesliga rivals VfL Wolfsburg to face Borussia Moenchengladbach yesterday, Arjen Robben’s first-half goal in Germany’s capital was enough to give Bayern their 10th win in 13 league games.
After suffering their first defeat of the season at Manchester in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday to post their first loss in 23 games, the defending champions put in a no-frills performance from to preserve their unbeaten Bundesliga record.
Photo: EPA
“Perhaps the players were tired after playing 70 minutes with 10 men in Manchester,” Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said in Berlin, referring to Mehdi Benatia’s first-half dismissal. “I was happy with the first half performance, but we can improve on the second.”
Die Roten went ahead at the Olympiastadion when Mario Goetze played Thomas Mueller into the area before Robben hit the top left-hand corner from long range with 27 minutes gone.
With six months remaining in the season, Bayern’s march to their third straight Bundesliga title looks virtually unstoppable once again.
Photo: AFP
At the other end of the table, Borussia Dortmund, who were to face Eintracht Frankfurt yesterday, dropped back to bottom after both Werder Bremen and VfB Stuttgart picked up wins on the weekend.
Bremen’s 4-0 hammering of SC Paderborn 07 and Stuttgart’s 4-1 win at SC Freiburg on Friday saw both sides leapfrog Dortmund.
Bremen moved up to 14th as caretaker coach Viktor Skripnik picked up his fourth win in five games since taking over from the fired Robin Dutt, as Zlatko Junuzovic, Davie Selke, Fin Bartels and Levent Aycicek scored.
Meanwhile, both Schalke 04 and Bayer 04 Leverkusen roared back from midweek Champions League defeats by claiming heavy wins to go sixth and third respectively.
Schalke responded to their 5-0 Champions League rout by Chelsea with a 4-1 hammering of FSV Mainz at home, with Netherlands striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar claiming a hat-trick.
Leverkusen put their Champions League defeat at home to AS Monaco behind them with a 5-1 win at the BayArena against Cologne in the Rhine derby as both Josip Drmic and Karim Bellarabi scored twice.
After a seven-goal thriller, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim went seventh in the table with a 4-3 win over Hannover 96, who drop to eighth, while Augsburg routed Hamburg SV 3-1.
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