Live

LIVE: OTB Breakfast

07:30 AM-10:00 AM

LIVE: OTB Breakfast
Advertisement
Soccer

Bayern Munich's one weakness | Kenny Cunningham on Champs League

Kenny Cunningham feels Bayern Munich's weakness down the right-hand side is one area of concern, ...



Bayern Munich's one weakness |...
Soccer

Bayern Munich's one weakness | Kenny Cunningham on Champs League

Kenny Cunningham feels Bayern Munich's weakness down the right-hand side is one area of concern, as they look to win two more games to be crowned Champions League winners.

Hansi Flick's side take on Lyon in their semi-final in Lisbon tonight, with the winner set to join Paris Saint-Germain in Sunday's decider after the French champions saw off RB Leipzig 3-0 last night.

Former Republic of Ireland captain Cunningham was on OTB AM, where he skipped over any chance of a Lyon upset later, and went straight to where Bayern will need to be careful in Sunday's final.

"Bayern keep a very high line, we all know that. They press high up the pitch, and rightly so, they want to dominate possession and get their attacking players on the ball.

"But they'd be absolutely foolish if they weren't having conversations about [Kylian] Mbappé and his ability on the counter-attack, and that high line in particular.

"The weakness in the Bayern team is down that right-hand side, it's the presence of [Jérôme] Boateng in that defence. He's not the most athletic, he's not the quickest on the turn.

"[Joshua] Kimmich will probably play at right-back, it'll be his responsibility to deal with Mbappé to an extent. Kimmich is a very talented player, a lovely footballer, but again he's not ridiculously quick off the mark.

"So that's the area of the pitch Bayern are going to have to give a lot of consideration to. Even if it means tweaking that high line, not squeezing as high, and if they do squeeze they've got to be prepared to drop quickly into the space.

"If Mbappé's going to have the ball, he's going to have it into his feet, where Kimmich can go and press, where they can show him on the inside, where the likes of the holding midfielder Thiago will be coming across Boateng... You're getting a bit of that suffocating effect around them.

Kenny feels the Bavarian's would regret not giving PSG's attacking talents their fair share of attention in pre-game preparation.

"You can't be doing the squeeze to the half-way line like we've seen previously, even against Barcelona, and allowing the likes of Neymar to drop and play those little diagonal balls in behind Boateng.

"They're going to open them up like so I can't believe they're going to be that foolish, Bayern.

"It's interesting, teams nowadays, this kind of philosophy they have - high press, the squeeze - that's all well and good, but you can't do it everytime.

"Sometimes you've got to assess each individual situation and react to it. If you don't at this high level, against this quality of opposition, you're really asking for trouble.

"So this is a very dangerous game for Bayern Munich. I love the set-up of the team, they are the favourites for the competition, but they're only favourites for me if they play it smart against PSG."

Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!

Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.


Read more about

Bayern Munich Champions League Kenny Cunningham Lyon Otb Am PSG