Hot Streak: Kimmich carrying sleeping Bayern into Gladbach game
After last weekend’s 2-2 draw with 10-man Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayern boss Carlo Ancelotti was not a happy man. It’s not entirely surprising either. Despite topping the table once more the Bundesliga champions are yet to convince this time around, bar one exception: Joshua Kimmich.
While the star names at the Allianz have faltered, the youngster has been in superb form at a rare time when Bayern aren’t really convincing. Ancelotti accused his players of showing the wrong attitude last week, stating "We have slept for 45 minutes in every game this season and that's too much. Maybe you can lose concentration for 10 minutes in a game -- but 45 minutes is too long." He continued, “I have to make changes because I don't want my team to have this kind of attitude."
The one player whose place in the line-up seems most assured then is Kimmich, who is enjoying an incredibly rich vein of form in front of goal having found himself stationed at the opposite end of the pitch for much of last season.
Indeed, the youngster became something of a pet project of Pep Guardiola last season, which tends to be a good indication that the Spaniard sees great potential in a player. "I love Joshua Kimmich, he brings everything. He has absolutely everything and can achieve whatever he wants", the ex-Bayern boss said back in March, speaking after Der Klassiker with Dortmund.
The manner in which Guardiola seemed to give Kimmich a dressing down on the pitch after that game was alarming, but his manager at the time was desperate for the youngster to realise his potential. He’s certainly doing that right now, now being deployed in a more familiar midfield role, but even still it's one that he had not been used to in the past.
Kimmich is now flourishing with the freedom to make late runs into the box and has already proven to have quite the knack for it, having been predominantly utilised as a holding midfielder in the past due to his advanced reading of the game. All the while, he’s still representing Germany at right-back, hammering home just how versatile the 21-year old is, or at least has needed to be for both club and country.
Kimmich’s role as a full-back with the national side, after all, is as much through necessity as a natural ability to play that position. Die Mannschaft has been short of quality in that area, particularly on the right, since Philipp Lahm’s retirement, with Kimmich the only player to have performed well enough at right-back to hold down a spot since then. Were it not for a shortage of options then on current form one would have to argue that the youngster should be in line for a starting berth in midfield alongside Toni Kroos.
Indeed, when looking at Kimmich’s WhoScored ratings by starting position since the start of last season in the league, Champions League and Euro 2016, it’s abundantly clear where he has performed best. In eight starts across said competitions the versatile youngster has garnered a superb rating of 7.88 compared, for example, to a far more modest score of 6.83 in 15 starts from centre-back, and 7.12 in his three appearances at right-back in France.
It was, however, Kimmich’s first goal for the senior national side against Norway at the start of last month that really set in motion this remarkable run of form. Before that point he was not only yet to break his international duck, but he hadn’t scored a single goal for Bayern either.
That much would change just five days after said strike in Oslo as Kimmich netted in injury time of a 2-0 win over Schalke, and he hasn’t stopped scoring since. His first Champions League goals, scoring twice in a 5-0 win over Rostov, followed and he has since gone on to score in each of his last four starts, first with the winner against Hamburg and then with goals against Cologne and Frankfurt, ultimately earning Bayern a point in both matches as the champions have really struggled to exert their dominance in Germany’s top-flight.
The likes of Lewandowski and Muller have both been out of sorts in front of goal, though the hope will be that both can kick on having each ended 5-game streaks without a goal by netting - along with Kimmich - in the Champions League against PSV on Wednesday. As it is Bayern have been incredibly lucky to have a player that has conjured an ability to not only pick up goalscoring positions but take his chances, seemingly from nowhere. After all, since Kimmich scored his first Bayern goal last month he has scored at least three more times than any teammate, with Lewandowski (4) closest to his tally of seven.
Nevertheless, Bayern can’t rely on their in-form midfielder to keep producing the goods, needing to get themselves out of a funk in the league that has as yet gone unpunished. Aiming to avoid a third league game without victory, the opponent they would perhaps least like to face is Gladbach, who are the visitors to the Allianz Arena on Saturday.
Where so many German sides have been mere cannon fodder for Bayern in recent years, The Foals have often had their number, with the Bavarians winning just one and losing two of their last five home matches in the league against Andre Schubert's side. The Borussia boss was the only Bundesliga manager that Pep Guardiola failed to beat in his time at the club, with Ancelotti aiming to usurp his predecessor in that regard after an unconvincing start to life in Munich. He certainly owes a lot to Kimmich for ensuring things haven't been far worse.
Should Kimmich be considered as a midfielder for Germany or is he needed at right-back? Let us know in the comments below
