Football
Unbeaten Leverkusen outclass Bayern Munich to take control of title race
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Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen outplayed champions Bayern Munich for a 3-0 victory on Saturday that sent them five points clear at the top of the league and put them firmly in charge of the title race.
Goals from Josip Stanisic, Alejandro Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong made sure of the three points as Leverkusen, who have never won a Bundesliga title, and stretched their unbeaten run to 31 matches across all competitions this season.
Bayern, chasing a 12th straight league crown, were nowhere to be seen and managed only a single shot on target over the 90 minutes.
Xabi Alonso’s team, who also twice hit the woodwork, are now on 55 points, with Bayern in second place on 50.
“Today it was a very disciplined performance from my team,” said Alonso. “It was not easy but we waited for our chances. Maybe we did not have the ball too much today but we wanted to be dominant even without the ball.”
“It was a very important win but it is just three points,” he said. “We have to keep going. It is still February and we need to remain calm.”
“We started well but then errors started creeping in,” said Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel, whose team travels to face Lazio in the Champions League Round of 16 next week.
“We were not able to carve out any chances, even later in the game when we had five or six attacking players. I don’t have an explanation for why we did not get Harry more involved in the game,” said Tuchel.
