Bayern’s slip-up provided second-placed Borussia Dortmund with a huge incentive to win their late game at Wolfsburg and they duly did so 2-1 in dramatic style.
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Brazilian Costa, a driving force in Bayern’s unbeaten Bundesliga run with the champions eight points clear at the top having won 13 of 14 matches, is nursing a thigh muscle injury that will keep him out for several weeks.
The hosts may be unfancied against Bayern but Zoran Mamic’s side head into the fixture buoyed by a last-gasp 2-1 win over Hajduk Split in the Eternal Derby on Saturday, with Hilal El Arbi Soudani scoring a 94th-minute victor.
“We’ve gained a lot of confidence in the last few weeks and we’ll go to Manchester with good belief in what we can do”, United States full back Fabian Johnson told the Bundesliga website.
Moenchengladbach took a deserved lead when Raffael gave a return pass to Wendt and the Sweden global fired past Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer on 54 minutes.
“But Gladbach did well and took all their chances”.
Bayern, repeatedly caught napping at the back and lacking their usual pace on the wings with Arjen Robben and Douglas Costa out injured, were still the better side in the first half.
– Pep Guardiola suffered his first defeat in a first half of a Bundesliga season (in the 49th match). “We must not lose the structure of our game in the manner with which we did”.
“It can happen that you concede a goal but after the first goal we completely lost our discipline”.
Manchester City’s hopes of topping a Champions League group for the first time hinge on Tuesday’s visit of a resurgent Borussia Monchengladbach side hoping to snatch third in Group D and a place in the Europa League.
We were very strong in the first half and created plenty of chances, but scored no goals.
“It was a great goal which decided the game”, said Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel.
“He’s very important to us”.
“It was a sensational performance from us”, Schubert said.
Gladbach coach Andre Schubert commented: “During half-time we discussed whether we wanted to change and play more offensively. We need to quickly forget [the Gladbach loss] and focus on the next match”.
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German paper Kicker has reported this latest development after Bayern Sporting Director Matthias Sammer was heard singing the praises of the forward.
