Bayern Munich’s Thomas Müller: "We're feeling the pressure"
Thomas Müller admits Bayern Munich are feeling the heat in the Bundesliga title race, despite consolidating their position at the top of the standings with a 1-0 win over Werder Bremen.
Niklas Süle’s deflected goal in the 75th minute settled a nervy encounter at the Allianz Arena as Bayern moved four points clear of second-placed Borussia Dortmund, who travel to Freiburg on Sunday.
"The pressure is there, we’re feeling it as we all desperately want to win the Bundesliga title," Müller told bundesliga.com after the game. "After half time, we had to up the pace, which we did, even though the result was still relatively close."
Bayern coach Niko Kovac echoed his stand-in captain’s sentiments after the defending champions ended Bremen’s 12-match unbeaten start to the year and became the first team this season to stop the top-six candidates from scoring.
"We knew Bremen would be tough to beat," Kovac admitted. "We had to be patient - the red card in the second half definitely helped. I’d have liked to see us kill the game off - we had numerous chances to do so - but 1-0 is enough and we’re happy to be top of the table at Easter. We fully deserved the win."
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Bayern have now won 15 of their 17 Bundesliga assignments in 2019, thumping teams like Fortuna Düsseldorf (4-1), Dortmund (5-0), Mainz (6-0), Wolfsburg (6-0) and Borussia Mönchengladbach (5-1), whilst grinding out wins against Hertha Berlin (1-0), Augsburg (3-2) and - most recently - Bremen.
Ahead of Dortmund on points and in terms of goal difference, the 27-time champions will claim a seventh successive Bundesliga title, if they win all four of their remaining fixtures: Nuremberg (a), Hannover (h), RB Leipzig (a) and Eintracht Frankfurt (h).
And that's exactly what Kovac wants his troupe to do.
"We’re four points clear, but nothing’s decided yet," the 47-year-old continued. "We’ve got four games left. It’d be great if Freiburg can get a result against Dortmund on Sunday - that perhaps makes our task a little easier, but we have to focus on ourselves. We have to win all four games. If we do that, we’ll be champions anyway."
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