Bayern Munich extended their perfect Bundesliga start as Michael Olise scored two goals and set up two more to give them a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen in a one-sided contest at the Weserstadion.
The Bavarian side, who suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to Bremen when the sides last met in a league clash in January, ran out comfortable winners to move up to 12 points from four matches. Jamal Musial said of Olise: “He is a great player. We understand each other very well, we talk a lot. The more games we play together, the more chemistry we’ll have. He’s got a lot of quality.”
Olise, signed from Crystal Palace for an initial £45m in July, has quickly established himself in the first team. He once again repaid Vincent Kompany’s faith as he was heavily involved in Bayern’s attacking play.
Bayern, who have scored 20 goals in their last three matches across all competitions, opened the scoring in the 23rd minute when Harry Kane seized possession on the edge of the area and played the ball to Olise, who fired his shot past the Bremen goalkeeper Michael Zetterer. The winger then wriggled his way into Bremen’s penalty area in the 32nd minute and his cutback was turned home by Musiala.
Bayern continued their onslaught after the break and Olise teed up Kane for a shot from the edge of the box, which led to the striker’s 41st Bundesliga goal, making him the highest-scoring English player in the German top flight’s history. Olise netted his fifth goal in three matches with a delightful sidefooted finish into the top corner and Serge Gnabry, on as a substitute, wrapped up the scoring in the 65th minute.
“It’s been a great week. Credit to the boys for the attitude and mentality,” Kane said. “The way we play on and off the ball has been great. The squad is being used well, the players are getting fitter, we were still pushing after three, four, five goals and wanted to score another.”
Bayern were without Manuel Neuer, their veteran goalkeeper, who was named in the starting lineup before pulling out after the warm-up due to a thigh injury, but the change made little difference. His deputy, Sven Ulreich, was untroubled throughout the match and faced no shots on target from a toothless Bremen attack.
In Serie A, Antonio Conte said he was “moderately satisfied” with his Napoli team’s goalless draw at Juventus but stressed the need for better ball execution. Napoli arrived in Turin on the back of a three-match winning streak in Serie A but fell short of capitalising on several good chances, despite solid defensive efforts.
“I realise the difficulty of getting a draw away to Juventus, a team that was 18 points away from Napoli last season,” Conte told DAZN. “We worked on this system, I am moderately satisfied with the defence, but we could’ve done far better in attack and I think we had the clearest scoring opportunities.”
Romelu Lukaku, who had shown been effective in front of goal since joining Napoli recently, struggled against Juve and was substituted near the end. “I think we did it well with the midfielders. Romelu still needs to get into the kind of shape that I require,” Conte said. “I had asked for consistency and it was a good performance in terms of focus, but we can and must do better when we have the ball, as there were some favourable situations.”
Reflecting on his past tenure at Juve from 2011 to 2014, Conte acknowledged the challenge of playing at Allianz Stadium. “I know it is not easy to play here, which is why I made this stadium a fortress during my time,” he concluded.
In Spain, Girona slumped to a surprise 2-0 defeat at struggling Valencia, as an own goal by Juanpe and a deflected strike by Dani Gómez within two second-half minutes gave the hosts a first LaLiga win in six games.
The victory moved Valencia from bottom to 18th on four points, one ahead of Getafe and two ahead of Las Palmas. Last-year’s surprise package Girona are 13th on seven points.
This story will be updated.
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