Bayern Munich directors must be feeling very uncomfortable at the moment. Their team are sixth in the Bundesliga and almost out of the Champions League.

So far their chosen successor to Juergen Klinsmann, who was sacked a few weeks before the end of last season for failing to secure any silverware, has had a worse run than the former striker.

Louis van Gaal, handpicked for what Bayern said was his discipline and teaching skills, was supposed to make everything good again after the Klinsmann experiment.

The Dutchman also got a roster boosted by more than 70 million euros worth of new signings including record Bundesliga transfer Mario Gomez, Croat striker Ivica Olic, Dutch midfielder Arjen Robben and Russian defensive midfielder Anatolyi Tymoshchuk as well as Croatia international Danijel Pranjic and Dutch defender Edson Braafheid.

Throw in 20-year-old Thomas Mueller’s superb current form and you have arguably a much stronger side. Klinsmann was begging for players but both Tymoshchuk and Olic, who were signed in December, joined in the summer.

Despite all this, Klinsmann still comes out on top on a head-to-head after 11 league matches played. Under him Bayern were in third place on 21 points with six wins, three draws and two defeats, with 25 goals for and 17 against.

Van Gaal’s Bayern are in sixth place after 11 matches on 19 points, with five wins, four draws, and two defeats. Goals are 17-9. So Klinsmann’s Bayern may have been conceding more goals but they also scored eight more in 11 matches. Without Gomez.

By this stage Bayern were already through to the next round of the Champions League under Klinsmann, all but out under van Gaal.

PHOTO: Bayern Munich’s coach Louis van Gaal watches his players during a team training session in Munich November 2, 2009. Bayern Munich will play Girondins Bordeaux in a Champions League soccer match on Tuesday. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

Bayern Munich’s decision to sack Juergen Klinsmann five rounds before the end of the season with the team just three points out of first place might end up working out for the club, with the title still very much up for grabs, but it’s sad news for the Bundesliga.

It is also sad for fans of the exciting, attacking style of football that the former Germany striker brought to Munich. Klinsmann had won myriad new enthusiasts for soccer in general and Bayern Munich in particular with his innovative approach — quite an achievement considering Bayern were probably the most hated club in Germany outside Bavaria.

Under Klinsmann, Bayern’s insatiable appetite for goals could make them a joy to watch going forward. Unfortunately for the coach, the defence also seemed to enjoy seeing goals scored too and let in far too many.

Bayern were brilliant on some nights: their 5-1 win over VfB Stuttgart in the German Cup and the one-sided wins in the Champions League against Sporting Lisbon (5-0 and 7-1) spring to mind.

But on other occasions they were pretty dreadful, like when they lost 2-1 against Cologne and 5-1 at VfL Wolfsburg — to say nothing of the humilating 4-0 defeat at Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

So why didn’t Bayern bosses hold tight and wait and see how the season played out? Five wins from their last seven Bundesliga matches had left them just three points behind Wolfsburg and one behind Hertha Berlin — two teams with no experience of a pressure-packed title run. Surely Bayern’s chances were pretty good.

Perhaps pressure from the German media, particularly the relentless criticism from Bild newspaper, just became too great.

There will certainly be many enjoying a sense of Schadenfreude after the move but there are plenty who will be saddened as well.

“Man trifft sich immer zweimal im Leben” is a German phrase that basically means “what goes around, comes around”. Don’t be surprised to see Klinsmann on the bench of another top European club before long. And don’t be surprised if Bayern live to regret firing Klinsmann.

Maybe even by next month.

So the thousands of fans chanting “Klinsmann out!” at the end of Bayern’s 1-0 defeat at home to Schalke on Saturday have got their way.

Bayern announced on Monday that Klinsmann was being relieved of his post with immediate effect. The man to replace him, at least until the end of the season, is Jupp Heynckes (officially the unluckiest coach in European football).

For Bayern to sack Klinsmann now, with the team just three points behind leaders Wolfsburg and with five games left to make up the difference, serves as a reminder of just how ruthless Bayern can be. Other clubs might have hung on until the chance of the championship was gone … but not the Bavarians, who probably had the right to expect more from the new training regimes, the army of backroom staff, the philosophising and the supposed new commitment to attack (see this Spiegel article in English for a feel of what Klinsmann’s coming was like) .

I read over the weekend that the heavy defeat against Barcelona in the Champions League was making the coach’s position uncomfortable but I suspect it was the club’s domestic form that was really causing the board consternation. Anyone can lose heavily to this Barcelona team, but Bayern should not be looking so sheer bloody ordinary in the Bundesliga.

So what next for Klinsmann? Will he try his luck at another big European club (I’m sure there’ll be plenty willing to take a chance) or will he return to California and steer clear of coaching? I certainly hope that’s not the last we see of him … even if his teams haven’t always lived up to their promise, football’s more interesting with him around.

PHOTO: Juergen Klinsmann runs ahead of Italian forward Luca Toni and French midfielder Franck Ribery during his final training session as Bayern Munich coach, April 26, 2009. REUTERS/Alexandra Beier

Juergen Klinsmann won almost everything there was to win as a player, enjoying success in Germany, Italy, France and England, but as a coach it’s been a different story.

Granted, taking over Bayern Munich on the back of their league and Cup double last season iss no easy task, especially if it is your first club level job.

But more than halfway through his first season at the club, things are not going as well as he and the club must have hoped.

Bayern are fifth in the league, albeit only four points off the top, but largely because the teams in front of them have also been dropping points.

On Wednesday the title holders spectacularly crashed out of the German Cup in a 4-2 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen. On the other hand they are almost certain of a place in the Champions League quarter-finals after their 5-0 away win against Sporting Lisbon.

But it is not so much the results that have raised questions of how long the Bayern bosses will allow him to stay on. It is the team’s overall performance that worries manager Uli Hoeness, director general Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and president Franz Beckenbauer.

The defence, which last season conceded 21 goals all season, has already let in 30 after only 22 matches. Against Leverkusen they let in three goals in 16 minutes.

In their three league defeats out of five matches since the winter break, Bayern defenders were largely to blame for individual mistakes that allowed Hertha Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne to leave victorious.

Even Franck Ribery, whose midfield acumen and creative play helped win the domestic double last season, has been complaining about the defence. Can they expect Ribery, the Bundesliga’s biggest star, to stay on if he does not have a shot at winning major European titles?

Former Bayern manager Felix Magath won the double in consecutive seasons only to be sacked halfway through the following campaign when the team dropped to fourth in the league back in 2007.

If Klinsmann’s team do not turn things around quickly, should the Bayern top brass do the same again?

PHOTO: Bayern Munich’s coach Jurgen Klinsmann (L) and manager Uli Hoeness react during the German Cup defeat by Bayer Leverkusen in Duesseldorf March 4, 2009. REUTERS/Johannes Eisele

Juergen Klinsmann, who has turned German soccer upside down the last four years with a dynamic and modern approach to the game, has once again managed to silence the domestic naysayers, at least for the time being.

Bayern’s 5-0 thrashing of Sporting Lisbon put an abrupt halt to the media speculation that Klinsmann’s job was on the line after Bayern lost three of their first four Bundesliga matches since the start of the second half of the season in January.

Never mind that Bayern opened 2009 with an awesome performance in destroying VfB Stuttgart 5-1 in a German Cup match, those losses (in which Bayern played well) combined with one truly dreadful effort last week, a 2-1 defeat at home against Cologne, suddenly had the poets in the press box writing Klinsmann’s obituary. (more…)

Bayern Munich thought they were getting instant Revolution when they hired Juergen Klinsmann but, with apologies for mixing up my rock references, at the moment it’s a case of ”Meet the new boss, same as the old boss“. (more…)

I’ve blogged before about the wealth of youngish goalkeeping talent in the Bundesliga, a list headed by Rene Adler at Bayer Leverkusen, Manuel Neuer at Schalke and Bayern Munich’s new number one Michael Rensing.

While Adler remains first choice in Leverkusen, and Neuer will certainly regain the gloves from the 19-year-old Ralf Faehrmann as soon as he’s fit, Juergen Klinsmann might just be getting a bit worried about Rensing, who had a shocker in Bayern’s 5-2 defeat at home to Werder Bremen at the weekend.

Rensing was anointed as Oliver Kahn’s successor as long ago as 2004, when at the age of 19 he made his Bundesliga debut in a 1-0 win over Hamburg. From then on he made occasional appearances as cover for Kahn and always acquitted himself at least decently, and sometimes very well indeed.

When Kahn finally retired at the end of last season there was no debate at the club, Rensing would be the number one, but the transition has not been a smooth one.

His record of never having appeared on the losing side for Bayern in 27 previous Bundesliga games came to an end with a series of comical errors against Bremen but even before then (just see the Champions League game against Steaua Bucharest) it was becoming clear that his greater agility is not going to make up for the loss of Kahn’s great presence.

Klinsmann has pledged his support to Rensing and no one expects the coach to take drastic action any time soon. Still, Klinsmann’s decision to bring in the former Leverkusen keeper Hans-Joerg Butt as cover is starting to look an ever more sensible move.

PHOTO: Michael Rensing reacts during Bayern’s humiliating defeat by Werder Bremen in Munich, September 20, 2008. REUTERS/Alexandra Beier