Bayern Munich’s faith in Thomas Tuchel is absolute – however bad things seem

If there's no miracle and Bayern Munich do get eliminated from the Champions League quarter-finals by Manchester City on Wednesday, many will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Out of the DFB Pokal, out of Europe and just narrowly ahead of Borussia Dortmund in a title race defined by the two sides' weaknesses: couldn't they have done just as well — or, rather, badly — with Julian Nagelsmann still in charge?

It's a question that will unnerve executive chairman Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic in weeks to come, even if Bayern win the Bundesliga for the 11th year running.

The board will, understandably, plead for patience until replacement Thomas Tuchel has had a chance to make a couple of changes to the squad and gets a full pre-season to whip the team into shape. In contrast to their constant but obviously forced backing of Nagelsmann until his sacking three weeks ago, confidence in the former Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea manager really does run very high at the club's Sabener Strasse headquarters. The players have also been hugely impressed by his methods and eloquence. There's a strong belief that things will get better before too long.

But in the meantime, poor performances such as the 1-1 draw with Hoffenheim on Saturday make waiting for the big upswing a very uncomfortable exercise. As a club, Bayern are unable to simply accept an absence of short-term success.

The new coach's inability to produce an immediate bounce, the 4-2 debut win over Dortmund aside, has shifted the public discourse in Bavaria away from him and towards the club's leadership duo. “Kahn and Salihamidzic have driven the season into the wall,” Bild wrote on Monday. It's an obvious charge, considering that their big decision hasn't brought quick dividends. But it's also a revisionist take.

While last season had “fallen apart” after the winter break, as Leroy Sane told The Athletic, the current campaign had been in danger of disintegrating from the get-go.

There was a major crisis as early as September (four games without a win), another one in January (three draws), a board meeting where serious doubts about Nagelsmann were voiced in February and then the decisive 2-1 defeat away to Bayer Leverkusen on March 19.

In between those lows, good results in the Champions League kept things ticking over for the 35-year-old. But those occasional highs, marked by a show of focus and spirit by the team, only brought the drab inconsistency in the league into sharper focus.

Around €145million ($159m) worth of signings in the summer, including in key areas that had been neglected in the past, had created an expectation that Bayern would make serious waves in the Champions League in Nagelsmann's second season. Domestically, improvement would be measured in style, not just trophies. The board craved the devastating dominance Bayern had shown under the guidance of Jupp Heynckes (2012-13), Pep Guardiola (2013-16) and Hansi Flick (2019-20).

Instead, they witnessed a series of closely fought and worryingly fraught games that were more reminiscent of a different decade — the post-2001 years, when Bayern slipping up in the league was still a fairly regular occurrence. A points per game average of 2.08 had them on course for their worst season since 2010-11.

Not even Jurgen Klopp would have survived such regression with a squad that's on a completely different level to anything the rest of the Bundesliga can muster.

Bayern had wanted to sign Haaland but instead watched him help Man City put them to the sword in the Champions League last week (Photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Kahn and Salihamidzic were faced with a stark choice: intervene in March, at the risk of appearing panicky, or see the season out fearing the worst, and face even stronger criticism for their inaction afterwards if form failed to improve. In light of Tuchel's availability, they opted to change jockey mid-race — and would undoubtedly do so again.

Perhaps a more pertinent criticism is that they neglected to replace Robert Lewandowski adequately last summer. After attempts to lure Harry Kane or Erling Haaland to Munich proved futile, they signed Sadio Mane with a view of creating a more flexible, fluid attacking formation. That clearly hasn't worked out.

Nagelsmann, who had expressly supported the new-set up after clashing with Lewandowski over tactics last season, wanted to emulate the approach of Liverpool and Manchester City (before Haaland's arrival) but he quickly realised that Bayern were better off with the 191cm (6ft 3in) Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting leading the line.

The former Stoke City and Paris Saint-Germain striker's inclusion intensified competition for starting places behind him, making it harder for the manager to find a settled line-up. The constant changes seemed to hurt both Mane's pride as well as the confidence of others, and may have played a part in the recent incident which saw Mane slap Sane after an on-pitch dispute boiled over in the away dressing room after last week's first-leg loss to City, earning the Senegalese a suspension. There's also a political, dressing-room dimension to a star player on big money failing to have the desired effect.

The upshot? Not a single Bayern forward is in form right now, and they have had to rely on defenders to find the net in the last four games. “We have many chances but can't convert them at the moment, that's our problem,” their France international right-back Benjamin Pavard said at the pre-match press conference on Tuesday.

Thomas Muller has made the same point slightly differently. In the past, Bayern would have probably scored enough goals to win against Hoffenheim at the weekend, their poor performance notwithstanding, the 2014 World Cup winner said. Choupo-Moting's possible return against City tonight might help in that respect. “He gives us confidence, presence and physicality,” Tuchel said.

No one at Sabener Strasse will pretend that the bet on Mane has worked out. After a good start, the 31-year-old has been unrecognisable from his Liverpool days, playing without the kind of energy and mentality that was supposed to fire up those around him. Both Tuchel and Kahn have expressed optimism that Mane will improve once he is more settled after eight years in England but he didn't need any time at all to bed in at Austria's Red Bull Salzburg, Southampton and Liverpool, which begs the question of why things are different in Munich and whether his loss of form could have been foreseen.

What is undeniable is that no one did foresee it. At the time, Mane's arrival was universally feted as a huge coup for the German champions, including by this reporter in The Athletic. It's disingenuous to pretend that Bayern should have known that neither he nor Nagelsmann's tactical evolution were unlikely to succeed.

Tuchel will draw his own conclusions, in time for a first recruitment summit in the days to come. He will be given scope to make changes as he sees fit. But this squad, hailed as “the best of all time” by former Bayern defender Markus Babbel and plenty of others only a few weeks ago, doesn't need a rebuild, just key-hole surgery.

Winning the league again would make the hunt for a new, marquee centre-forward go more smoothly and tone down the media noise. But even total disaster — aka, Dortmund's first title since 2012 — won't change the basic outlook.

Bayern are positive Tuchel is the right man to overlook the inevitable rebound.