Vincent Kompany | Bayern Munich Manager

It was a terrible decision, no mincing words. I’m not sure it’s automatic he comes back to Bayern if he’s wanted by a big club in England or Spain.
Let’s agree to disagree on that.
But I’m quite confident that he will come here again, if we push hard enough. He’s a Bayern fan and ambitious as feck. He’s not done here.
 
Tah ran 35.8 km/h last season which made him the second fastest CB in the league and 13th fastest player overall. He reached a higher top speed than Adeyemi, Coman, Marmoush, Ekitike and Bynoe-Gittens and was tied with Leroy Sané. I was surprised not more top clubs were interested in him, it really was a no brainer for any top club that could use a CB.
What's his acceleration like though? Some players can have high top speeds but take quite some time to get there, and most of the time the players with faster acceleration will be more effective on a football pitch. I'll be the first to admit I haven't watched much of Tah (and what I did was three or four seasons ago), but I don't remember thinking he looked all that fast back then. I could easily be wrong though.
 
Yeah, I think it is principally a good idea to sign somebody of Kompany's profile in the current market. His style of football fits a top club in principle and when you take a look at the most successful managerial appointments in recent years, they have all been young, ambitious coaches who were a bit of a gamble at the time of their signature. As somebody who really, really don't want Bayern to do well, especially not at this particular point in time, I would have preferred somebody like Rangnick over a gamble like Kompany simply because I know Rangnick is a good but not a great coach.

Anyway, I agree that flexibility is becoming much more important again. We are moving away from stubborn systems that proved to be the way to go in the last decade to an extent and many top coaches use atypical approaches in certain games. Personally, I think that Kompany will need to adapt as well. When facing teams who have fast and skillfull attackers, you simply can't leave your CBs exposed like that. The Frankfurt match highlighted that already, now Barca did what they did to them and Madrid would probably rip them to shreds if they can constantly create situations in which Vinicius and Mbappe can engage Kim and Upamecano in 2v2s.

Yep, the young coaches are always a gamble right, because they can either do really well or really bad.

The problem Bayern have, just rewatched the highlights of the game, the CB's are not very good, when you play this style of play, the CB's have to be top tier.

Upamecano has always struggled with this, he is very clumsy and Kim is indecisive. Look at Barca's 2nd goal where he is calling for a foul, a tope CB deals with it, along with many instances in the game. The CB's they have are overrated.

I remember the caf went into meltdown last summer when we didnt sign Kim and everyone was talking as if he is VVD, many of which never watched him play other than a CL game here and there.

Bayern were in for Tah but didnt want to pay the money, should have got him in if this is the style they want to play. Im surprised that Upamecano is still this bad, considering he is used to this style of play from Leipzig.
 
I don’t like teams getting second chances. Not in a cup tournament.
I fully agree with your sentiment, but I really don't see this as a second chance. I would agree that it's unnecessary matches, could just have the top 16 automatically qualify for R16 instead, but this way it's just a longer way for those teams who didn't impress right away. What I consider a second chance is what we had before, that third placed teams would drop into the Europa League. I like that this kind of second chance to win something different is gone, which is one reason why I like this new format.
 
Tah ran 35.8 km/h last season which made him the second fastest CB in the league and 13th fastest player overall. He reached a higher top speed than Adeyemi, Coman, Marmoush, Ekitike and Bynoe-Gittens and was tied with Leroy Sané. I was surprised not more top clubs were interested in him, it really was a no brainer for any top club that could use a CB.

You know that's ridiculous, Tah has the turning speed of a tractor and as soon as a quick attacker has him one on one he's not able to keep up.

Being a quick defender isn't just about speed on a straight but how mobile you are and Tah isn't mobile, nor does he quick acceleration.

Regarding Kompany, yes clubs have taken risks with young managers (I suppose you would include Arteta and Alonso) but none of their clubs were as big as Bayern. They had more leeway to fail because they hadn't had success before, that's a completely different case for Bayern or any other of the biggest clubs in the world (before anyone brings up Pep, Pep had been coaching the Barca second team so everyone at the club was well aware of how good he was).

Bayern isn't a club that has the leeway to make experiments on managers and neither were they thinking like this. It was desperation for them so they are trying to justify it by poetically describing Kompany while dumping Tuchel.
 
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It was a terrible decision, no mincing words. I’m not sure it’s automatic he comes back to Bayern if he’s wanted by a big club in England or Spain.
Sacking Naggelsman and Flick were bad decisions
 
Was Flick sacked? I thought he decided to leave of his own volition.
He didn't really get along with Salihamidzic (their DoF at the time) and jumped at the opportunity to manage Germany instead. A less troubled relationship of these two could have seen him stay in the job.
 
You know that's ridiculous, Tah has the turning speed of a tractor and as soon as a quick attacker has him one on one he's not able to keep up.

Being a quick defender isn't just about speed on a straight but how mobile you are and Tah isn't mobile, nor does he quick acceleration.

Regarding Kompany, yes clubs have taken risks with young managers (I suppose you would include Arteta and Alonso) but none of their clubs were as big as Bayern. They had more leeway to fail because they hadn't had success before, that's a completely different case for Bayern or any other of the biggest clubs in the world (before anyone brings up Pep, Pep had been coaching the Barca second team so everyone at the club was well aware of how good he was).

Bayern isn't a club that has the leeway to make experiments on managers and neither were they thinking like this. It was desperation for them so they are trying to justify it by poetically describing Kompany while dumping Tuchel.

Is there any Central defender who is really comfortable with and looks good a high line(Maybe Kyle Walker), even Kompany who was a defender I doubt he fancied being 40m from goal and in a constant foot race with attackers
 
What's his acceleration like though? Some players can have high top speeds but take quite some time to get there, and most of the time the players with faster acceleration will be more effective on a football pitch. I'll be the first to admit I haven't watched much of Tah (and what I did was three or four seasons ago), but I don't remember thinking he looked all that fast back then. I could easily be wrong though.

Tah has changed his nutrition plan shortly before Alonso came in. I can't find a source that gave the precise weight loss but I remember reading somethin between 10-20 pounds. He's much more agile and explosive than he used to be. In terms of rest defense, he's far and away our most important player and wins countless running duels, forces strikers who broke through to put a foot on the ball and wait for support, etc. Especially now that I have seen how Kompany wants to play, I don't get why they didn't pay up. Seems really ridiculous to go into the season with Upamecano, Kim, Ito and Dier instead of paying an additional €5m to sign a player from the direct competition who proved to excel in the role Kompany imagines for his CBs.


Yep, the young coaches are always a gamble right, because they can either do really well or really bad.

The problem Bayern have, just rewatched the highlights of the game, the CB's are not very good, when you play this style of play, the CB's have to be top tier.

Upamecano has always struggled with this, he is very clumsy and Kim is indecisive. Look at Barca's 2nd goal where he is calling for a foul, a tope CB deals with it, along with many instances in the game. The CB's they have are overrated.

I remember the caf went into meltdown last summer when we didnt sign Kim and everyone was talking as if he is VVD, many of which never watched him play other than a CL game here and there.

Bayern were in for Tah but didnt want to pay the money, should have got him in if this is the style they want to play. Im surprised that Upamecano is still this bad, considering he is used to this style of play from Leipzig.

Yes, exactly. Kompany's style exposes the CBs so you better have top quality in that position. But it is arguably their weakest position so it is definitely worth a thought to assign a third player as coverage instead of doubling down on pressing up front.


You know that's ridiculous, Tah has the turning speed of a tractor and as soon as a quick attacker has him one on one he's not able to keep up.

Being a quick defender isn't just about speed on a straight but how mobile you are and Tah isn't mobile, nor does he quick acceleration.

Regarding Kompany, yes clubs have taken risks with young managers (I suppose you would include Arteta and Alonso) but none of their clubs were as big as Bayern. They had more leeway to fail because they hadn't had success before, that's a completely different case for Bayern or any other of the biggest clubs in the world (before anyone brings up Pep, Pep had been coaching the Barca second team so everyone at the club was well aware of how good he was).

Bayern isn't a club that has the leeway to make experiments on managers and neither were they thinking like this. It was desperation for them so they are trying to justify it by poetically describing Kompany while dumping Tuchel.

That doesn't sound as if you've seen much of him last season. I would have fully agreed with you a few seasons ago but last season, Tah was very agile and able to keep very fast, agile and explosive strikers under control. Ironically, the striker he struggled most with was Antonio. It looked as if he was completely surprised that he couldn't dominate a tank like him physically anymore.

Regarding Bayern: I was speaking from my perspective. In Bayern's stead, I would have gone for a coach of Kompany's profile as well after it became clear that proven top coaches weren't attainable because the alternative would have been proven mediocrity (relatively speaking) like Rangnick etc. That aside, I don't think that it makes sense to talk about Bayern as if their board was a homogeneous entity. If I were to guess, I'd say Eberl would agree with me while Hoeneß would agree with your take.
 
Yes, exactly. Kompany's style exposes the CBs so you better have top quality in that position. But it is arguably their weakest position so it is definitely worth a thought to assign a third player as coverage instead of doubling down on pressing up front.

Exactly. They got weaker as well in that position selling De Ligt. He has also been used to playing a high line from Ajax.

It doesn't make sense to play a high line when you are not going to press well. Also, we have seen Kane, he can't press so it defeats the purpose trying to play that way when the leader of the press wont do it.
 
Exactly. They got weaker as well in that position selling De Ligt. He has also been used to playing a high line from Ajax.

It doesn't make sense to play a high line when you are not going to press well. Also, we have seen Kane, he can't press so it defeats the purpose trying to play that way when the leader of the press wont do it.

I think the pressing itself works quite well, actually. But thanks to only having two defenders as coverage, they have an additional player to press so who knows how it would look in a "normal" formation. But in general, I think you can play a pressing system with Kane upfront. Not every player has to be a relentless workhorse against the ball, often it is enough when a few cover passing lanes intelligently.

One way or another, it is still early days with Kompany. Maybe the vulnerability comes from players not fully understanding his instructions yet, maybe it really is a tactical flaw that he could still correct, etc. I'd love to see him fail for obvious reasons but let's not jinx it :D
 
I think the pressing itself works quite well, actually. But thanks to only having two defenders as coverage, they have an additional player to press so who knows how it would look in a "normal" formation. But in general, I think you can play a pressing system with Kane upfront. Not every player has to be a relentless workhorse against the ball, often it is enough when a few cover passing lanes intelligently.

One way or another, it is still early days with Kompany. Maybe the vulnerability comes from players not fully understanding his instructions yet, maybe it really is a tactical flaw that he could still correct, etc. I'd love to see him fail for obvious reasons but let's not jinx it :D

I think its a Kompany issue which he will need to change. He was getting criticised in England for the same kind of thing. In the championship his football worked really well as he is a good coach.

However; I am not sure if he is an elite tactician. Could it be 2 good seasons for you guys though, I must admit not watched any of the games but the big one coming soon right? Liverpool away will be a good test I reckon.
 
I think its a Kompany issue which he will need to change. He was getting criticised in England for the same kind of thing. In the championship his football worked really well as he is a good coach.

However; I am not sure if he is an elite tactician. Could it be 2 good seasons for you guys though, I must admit not watched any of the games but the big one coming soon right? Liverpool away will be a good test I reckon.

Yeah, Liverpool will be a real test especially since we're not exactly in the form of our lives. There are flashes of brillance during which you recognize the patterns of last season but also lots of occasions in which we're a shadow of the 23/24 team. We didn't look much better than Villa against Bayern for what it's worth so I would have preferred to play Liverpool a little farther down the road.
 
Is there any Central defender who is really comfortable with and looks good a high line(Maybe Kyle Walker), even Kompany who was a defender I doubt he fancied being 40m from goal and in a constant foot race with attackers

That's a fair point and it's a discussion people don't have around how tactics can make defenders look worse. Upamecano is key to this because he always looks much more impressive in a more defensive French team, or in matches in the last where Bayern have played deeper, but obviously can look all over the place when Bayern are playing ultra attacking.

I don't think Tah would be any better than Upa and Kim in Bayern right now. In a way he's worse than Upa in that he's slower but then again he would make less mistakes than Upa does.

I think its a Kompany issue which he will need to change. He was getting criticised in England for the same kind of thing. In the championship his football worked really well as he is a good coach.

However; I am not sure if he is an elite tactician. Could it be 2 good seasons for you guys though, I must admit not watched any of the games but the big one coming soon right? Liverpool away will be a good test I reckon.
Leverkusen haven't been nearly as good as last season, which is understandable. Though they were great last year they were heavily overperforming their expected stats, which would get normalized this year, and they have the added stress of tougher UCL matches compared to EL last season. Don't think they'll pose a problem to Bayern because Bayern will still have enough to win the league, Dortmund are....well they're just Dortmund while Stuttgart will also struggle with playing in European competition this year. Lepizig have quietly done well, and they have a big squad themselves, but don't think they have good enough players.
 
Leverkusen haven't been nearly as good as last season, which is understandable. Though they were great last year they were heavily overperforming their expected stats, which would get normalized this year, and they have the added stress of tougher UCL matches compared to EL last season. Don't think they'll pose a problem to Bayern because Bayern will still have enough to win the league, Dortmund are....well they're just Dortmund while Stuttgart will also struggle with playing in European competition this year. Lepizig have quietly done well, and they have a big squad themselves, but don't think they have good enough players.

Agreed, I dont think they will be able to maintain a title challenge this season, I think being in the top 4 with a good CL run would be a good season for them though.

I dont think Dortmund will threaten at all and the other 2 will have relatively good seasons without challenging.

Its not an easy task to challenge Bayern with the squad they generally have, which is why the CL is where Bayern managers get judged.
 
That's a fair point and it's a discussion people don't have around how tactics can make defenders look worse. Upamecano is key to this because he always looks much more impressive in a more defensive French team, or in matches in the last where Bayern have played deeper, but obviously can look all over the place when Bayern are playing ultra attacking.

I don't think Tah would be any better than Upa and Kim in Bayern right now. In a way he's worse than Upa in that he's slower but then again he would make less mistakes than Upa does.


Leverkusen haven't been nearly as good as last season, which is understandable. Though they were great last year they were heavily overperforming their expected stats, which would get normalized this year, and they have the added stress of tougher UCL matches compared to EL last season. Don't think they'll pose a problem to Bayern because Bayern will still have enough to win the league, Dortmund are....well they're just Dortmund while Stuttgart will also struggle with playing in European competition this year. Lepizig have quietly done well, and they have a big squad themselves, but don't think they have good enough players.

I think you're applying two different measuring sticks here. It's fair to point out we were outperforming our expected stats last season but then you should also mention that we're underperforming them currently. After 7 games, we were at 15.3 xPTS last season and this season we're at 14.6. Meanwhile, Bayern were at 17.93 xPTS after 7 games last season and are now at 16.9 so the expected stats are actually closer than a year ago. But Bayern completely imploded afer the winter break thanks to the toxic state the club found itself in and some major problems in terms of squad depth. I don't think people really get how good Bayern was up until that 0:3 against us. They were playing a top 3 season in their history if I'm not mistaken.

In my opinion, it is far too early to make any assumptions on who will win the league at this point. We finished the league with 90 points, that's only been bested once in Bundesliga history. Even if we're not in the same form as last season, you don't collect 90 points with luck and the quality that got us there hasn't suddenly vanished. Even if we drop 10 points compared to 23/24, we'd still finish with 80 points and in the last six years, Bayern has only finished on 80+ points once and that was in the first covid season.
 
Hansi Flick has an 81% win rate with Bayern and won the treble his first season. Getting rid of Flick might have been worse than sacking Nagelsman.
Flick *wanted* out to become coach of the German national team. Sure, his relationship with at least Brazzo was broken, but he left on his own terms.
 
The issue is that recruiting is not that easy when you insist on playing such a high line. You essentially need sprinters across the back line. That's the reason they got rid of De Ligt, too. Not fast enough.
Yeah, you need fast positionally aware defenders, but its not like they lack funds
 
Essentially both got sacked for sacking Nagelsmann.
That’s leaving out like a 100 different mistakes that also played into this. Saying it came down to that sacking doesn’t do justice to the sheer volume of their incompetence.
 
Yeah, you need fast positionally aware defenders, but its not like they lack funds

Kane: 380k per week
Neuer, Sané, Kimmich: 327k
Coman, Gnabry: 308k
Goretzka, Müller: 270k
Kim, Upamecano, Palhinha: 256k

Those are Bayern's top earners in punds. Sané, Coman, Gnabry, Goretzka, Müller and Palhinha aren't starting right now. Salihamidzic really fecked their salary structure up. From that sense, Bayern is in a bit of a dilemma: They find it hard to sell their top earners so their contracts will likely run out. If they run out, they need to invest in new players who will earn less but will cost transfer fees that aren't covered by received fees. And they'll need to promote Musiala into the Neuer, Sané and Kimmich tier at the very least within the next 12 months or so. It'll probably take them another 3-4 years to sort that out and utilize their full spending prowess again. Brazzo really was the saviour many people saw in him.

edit: According to planetfootball.com, they currently have the highest wage bill in European football with ~€268m narrowly followed by Real Madrid with City being a distant 3rd in front of United, Barca and PSG.
 
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