Berlin: Thomas Mueller is backing Bayern Munich teammate Robert Lewandowski to break Gerd Mueller’s phenomenal record of 40 goals in a Bundesliga season after the Poland striker’s red-hot start to the campaign.
Lewandowski has scored 10 goals in Bayern’s first five league games.
“When you see how consistently he scores, it’s definitely within the realm of possibility,” Thomas Mueller said when asked if Lewandowski can topple Gerd Mueller’s mark, set in 1971/72.
Bayern on Saturday visit third-from-bottom Cologne, against whom Lewandowski has scored 12 goals in 13 matches.
All Bundesliga games this weekend will be behind closed doors ahead of new measures announced by the German government to curb rising numbers of the coronavirus.
Having scored all four goals in a 4-3 win over Hertha Berlin, Lewandowski netted a hat-trick in last weekend’s 5-0 rout of Eintracht Frankfurt.
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Mueller praised Lewandowski for also adding assists to his game.
“(Lewandowski) has always wanted to score lots of goals, now he wants to make them as well. You can’t praise that highly enough,” Mueller told DAZN.
Lewandowski, who scored 55 goals in all competitions last term, also has four assists this season.
“What he has been doing now for over a year is something special,” added Mueller.
Bayern travel over the Alps to face Salzburg in the Champions League on Tuesday and Lewandowski could be rested on Saturday.
However, Cologne coach Markus Gisdol insists Bayern are currently “the world’s best team” regardless of who plays.
“They hardly make any passing mistakes, you can’t afford to just worry about Lewandowski,” said Gisdol, with Cologne chasing a first win over Bayern in nine years.
Bayern are second in the table, a point behind leaders RB Leipzig whose coach Julian Nagelsmann insisted they must learn from Wednesday’s 5-0 drubbing at Manchester United.
Leipzig face fellow Champions League side Borussia Moenchengladbach on Saturday.
Nagelsmann wants a reaction from his side after admitting the 15 minutes of football Leipzig played after going 2-0 down at Old Trafford was “some of the worst we have played in a long time”.
Fixtures
Friday
Schalke v Stuttgart, 11.30pm
Saturday
Eintracht v Bremen, 6.30pm
Cologne v Bayern, 6.30pm
Augsburg v Mainz, 6.30pm
Arminia Bielefeld v Dortmund, 6.30pm
Monchengladbach v RB Leipzig, 9.30pm
Sunday
Freiburg v Leverkusen, 6.30pm
Hertha Berlin v Wolfsburg, 9pm
Monday
Hoffenheim v Union Berlin, 11.30pm
