Viktoria Plzen vs. FC Bayern preview: Team news and predicted lineups
Bayern have a number of injury concerns, as they travel to the Czech Republic and play Viktoria Plzen for the second consecutive week. With a win, the Bavarian club may be able to secure a spot in the Champions League knockout round.
Coming off a wild, but disappointing draw in Der Klassiker on Matchday 9, Bayern turn their attention once again to Viktoria Plzen. They will be hoping for another smooth performance after last week's 5-0 victory to avoid seeing any more complaints from CEO Oliver Kahn on Twitter.
Bayern's camp have been dealing with an uptick in Covid cases over the last couple weeks and now Jamal Musiala has been ruled out on Wednesday due to the virus. However, Thomas Müller is set to the return to the pitch after missing their last two competitive games.
Alphonso Davies will definitely miss out due to Jude Bellingham's head kick over the weekend. Serge Gnabry could be rested with a knock suffered against Dortmund, but Kingsley Coman will be gunning to play with an upcoming one-game league suspension.
Bouna Sarr and Lucas Hernandez will remain out, while Matthijs de Ligt is likely an addition to the injury list with adductor problems.
All of this could mean that Mathys Tel starts alongside Sadio Mane up front, while the defense will have to be sorted. Benjamin Pavard should move into his favorite position in center defense, with Josip Stanisic and Noussair Mazraoui fillling out the spaces out wide.
The midfield is the one area of the pitch that has returned to complete health and Nagelsmann could again select Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka to start alongside one another.
Although they do lead the Czech first division, in a daunting Champions League group, Viktoria Plzen haven't come close to claiming a point thus far. Radim Reznik, Jan Sykora, Jindrich Stanek and Lukas Hejda are all likely out.
Take a look at our predicted lineups here.