Harry Kane ‘disaster’ as Bayern Munich team-mate says they lack ‘balls’ in astonishing rant
Harry Kane has been labelled as a “disaster” by the German media with Thomas Muller claiming his Bayern Munich team-mates lacked “balls” in the defeat to Bayer Leverkusen.
Bayern travelled to leaders Leverkusen in a potential Bundesliga title decider on Saturday, with Thomas Tuchel’s side no match for Xabi Alonso’s men.
Josip Stanisic put Leverkusen ahead on 18 minutes at the BayArena before Alex Grimaldo added a second five minutes after the break.
Jeremie Frimpong put the seal on a 3-0 victory in stoppage time, guiding the ball into an empty net after Manuel Neuer was caught upfield contesting a corner.
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Leverkusen have extended their lead at the top of the table to five points with Tuchel coming under mounting pressure at Bayern, who last failed to win the German league back in 2012.
Kane arrived at Bayern Munich from Tottenham Hotspur with the aim of winning titles, but faces the agonising prospect of his wait for a major trophy being extended.
Despite comfortably leading the Bundesliga goalscoring charts with 24 goals so far this season, seven more than Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy, Kane’s limp performance in the most important match of Bayern’s season has seen the England captain heavily criticised in the German media – with newspaper BILD branding him ‘The Kane Disaster’.
The publication said: “He was actually brought in for games like this. Harry Kane had his worst game in a Bayern jersey.
Kane wasn’t in the game at all. No goal, no assist – six [out of 10]!
“Only his effort was right: he ran 10.8 km, only [Noussair] Mazraoui ran more for Bayern. He should win the top scorer [award].
“But he came to Bayern to win championships.”
The severe media criticism came after Muller, who was powerless to prevent a Leverkusen victory after entering the field as a 60th-minute substitute, questioned his team-mates’ guts in such a pivotal game for Bayern’s season and leapt to the defence of under-fire Tuchel.
Muller told Sky Germany: “To be honest, I’m p***ed off.
“To quote Oliver Kahn: what I miss from us players are the balls in the game.
“We are showing significantly better approaches in training. It’s OK to feel pressure, but there needs to be energy and freedom. That’s missing in our game.
“Sometimes we have to speak about us players. It’s not just about the coach. We have many international players at the highest level, we need to step up our game.”
Kane himself admitted it “hurt” to come out on the losing side against Leverkusen adding: “We didn’t play well with the ball.
“I thought the pressure, especially in the first half and even in the second half, we pressed them well, but every time we won it back we gave it straight back to them.
“That allowed them to build momentum. In the final third we weren’t good in one-vs-one battles, we weren’t good in duels, the final delivery wasn’t there today, so a really disappointing day with the ball.
“We’re five points behind now but there are still a lot of games to go. This one hurts, we wanted a different outcome, but we have to focus on, first, the Champions League, and obviously the next game. There are a lot of games to be played and we have to try and make up as many points as we can, as quickly as we can.”
Asked if Bayern are now the underdogs in the title race, he replied: “That’s not for us to decide.
“That’s for everyone else to decide. For us, we have to focus on ourselves, we have to improve, we have to get better. We know that. The games are coming thick and fast so we have to turn it around quick.”
