Are Bayern Munich heading into depression?

Carlo Ancelotti's debut season at Bayern Munich never looked all that convincing. The record Bundesliga champions struggled internally due to his coaching ideas and policies and they were nowhere near the dominant force they were during Pep Guardiola's tenure at Sabener Strasse. They still managed to lift the Bundesliga with a 15-point lead over RasenBallsport Leipzig owing to scrappy performances of other teams.

Bayern, however, faced exits from the DFB Pokal in semis and the quarters in UEFA Champions League which raised a few eyebrows. They were dealt with another blow as club stalwarts, Xabi Alonso and Philipp Lahm, hung up their boots at the end of the season.

Why the Ancelotti era won't be remembered

The major issues faced in Carlo Ancelotti's first season was his tactical inflexibility and marginal rotation. He stuck to his rigid 4-3-3 throughout the season despite seeing that it did not provide convincing results most of the time. He tried 4-2-3-1 at times which gave better results, owing to players who suited the system, but reverted back to his preferred formation as soon as possible.

Bayern were relying heavily on the individualism of players and the concept of team play and support was almost nowhere to be found. Most of the time they got away with results not with superior gameplay, but with moments of individual brilliance.

Players post his exit have criticised his training methods which were supposedly very light in nature and gave the players a hard time to maintain their shape. A coach, who never believed in rotation, had almost a fixed starting XI and did not change players usually unless injured. Many of them got overused and this led to long-term injuries to the likes of Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng, Manuel Neuer and David Alaba towards the end of the season.

This did not go down well with the management as well as the senior players who were at the receiving end. He somehow could never trust the likes of Thomas Muller and Jerome Boateng who felt marginalized in the squad with the coach not making adequate efforts to accommodate them.

Youngsters like Kingsley Coman and Joshua Kimmich who're doing so well now under Jupp Heynckes never got adequate chances and confidence from Ancelotti to showcase their abilities and take a step further in their individual development. The entire team regressed from the qualitative point of view. He also reportedly never visited the youth squad and the second team which showed his high amount of rigidity.

New season, old issues

Bayern were soundly beaten by PSG

The new season started, new signings were made, signings which Ancelotti considered to be important for the team but the same old problems were really not taken care of. Not single a backup for Robert Lewandowski is a clear example of Ancelotti's short-sightedness at the club given the fact he did not trust players from the youth academy as well.

Ancelotti had a horrendous pre-season in which Bayern lost all matches barring 1 against top teams of Europe. Bayern failed to hit the ground worst start domestically since 1995. Things were not looking good for Ancelotti. The final straw came in matchday 2 of Champions League in Paris as the mighty Germans lost 0-3 to Paris Saint-Germain, looking clueless for most of the match.

Before the match, Ancelotti made the surprise announcement to bench Boateng and Hummels which took them by surprise. After the match, 5 senior players complained to the Bayern top brass and the decision to put an end to Carlo Ancelotti's tenure was taken. Caretaker coach Willy Sagnol lasted only a week and Jupp Heynckes came out of retirement to for his 4th tenure at Bayern Munich to be the interim coach until the end of the season.

FC Hollywood once again?

Bayern were in crisis. The team was looking dismantled. They were in need of someone who would stitch the team together at first and make it work like a unit. Well, Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had the right solution; who better than Jupp Heynckes for such situations?

The 72-year-old legend came back out of his peaceful retirement to make things right for the club he loves so much. As per Bild reports, Heynckes hasn't even signed an official contract and is doing this without official wages, a very rare breed in today's world. His tenure started with convincing victories against Freiburg and Celtic and the team has been improving ever since. He took personal training sessions for the likes of James Rodriguez and Juan Bernat while they were recovering from injuries to give them assurance that he's there for them and they'll work together as a unit.

Visible improvements under Heynckes

Jupp Heynckes has instilled confidence in the team

The overall gameplay has improved, Sven Ulreich looks much more confident, Thomas Muller seems like he knows what his position is, David Alaba suddenly looks like the player he's supposed to be, the defence is much more organised and compact but the biggest improvement in such a short time has been French winger Kingsley Coman.

The youngster's decision-making abilities have improved, naturally with a move settled attack, and he's doing far better now which is only making him deadlier with each passing day. Even media reports of a dissatisfied James Rodriguez have stopped with Jupp slowly and steadily moulding the Colombian superstar to his style and formations with good results in return.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining

Heynckes is making sure everyone is integrated into his system to make the squad work like a unit

Bayern have made quite a few changes in a very short span of time. They are far from their very best but they're slowly gaining stability under Heynckes and will only get better in the days to come.

They could do with a backup striker and a winger in winter transfer window to make the team more balanced and also better equipped to face injuries. Manuel Neuer and Thiago Alcantara are still out for quite some time and once they're back Bayern will be, as expected, a very dominant force domestically and also in Europe.

Were Bayern Munich heading into depression? Sort of. Are they heading into depression now? No, but they need to be wary. Bayern Munich will always remain indebted to Heynckes for his 4th stint at Sabener Street irrespective of the results at the end of the season.