Kahn and Nagelsmann after victory: "Not riding too high."
Both Julian Nagelsmann and Oliver Kahn wished to emphasize that their team had merely taken a small step in the right direction after Friday night's redemptive victory.
Bayern's historically famous (not since 2001) four-match-winless run in the league is now a thing of the past. A convincing 4-0 win over Bayer 04 Leverkusen lifts the German record champions back up to second place in the table, though Dortmund, Freiburg, and Hoffenheim still have a chance to overtake before the weekend is out.
Talk of a "Bayern crisis" has nevertheless been shelved for now. Leverkusen trainer Gerardo Seoane sarcastically remarked afterwards that he would "love to have a crisis like Bayern" with his team. The table leaves Bayern with a good chance of finishing the round in the top four, while Bayer have no chance of escaping the relegation zone this matchday.
Contextually speaking, Bayern's "crisis" was never that great. On the topic of context, however, neither were Bayern's four goals on the evening. Jamal Musiala and Thomas Müller were able to score via errors from B04 keeper Lukas Hradecky. Sadio Mané and Leroy Sané found the back of the net thanks to deflections off Leverkusen defenders.
"The early goal helped us," Julian Nagelsmann noted afterwards whilst reflecting on Sané's (deflected in) 3rd minute tally, "Strangely enough, I told everyone in the locker room before the game: 'If we have a scoring chance in the 3rd minute, please use it.' That's what we did."
Nagelsmann also admitted that Müller's goal was a total gift from Hradecky and conceded that the "liberating" manner in which Sadio Mané ended his six-week scoring drought would not have been possible without the deflection in underneath Robert Andrich's calf.
FCB club CEO Oliver Kahn wished to qualify the victory.
"It was a first step in the right direction," Kahn said afterwards "We'd all be well advised not to ride to high on this. It's a matter of displaying that kind attitude game after game."