Football
ESPN staff 7y

Bayern Munich's Thomas Muller not 'self-destructive' over goal struggles

Bayern Munich forward Thomas Muller has said he is remaining positive despite a disappointing season that has seen him score just one Bundesliga goal this season.

The 27-year-old Germany international has been a prolific scorer since joining the Bayern first team in 2009, tallying fewer than 12 league goals just once in his previous seven campaigns with the club.

However, after failing to find the net for the entirety of Germany's Euro 2016 campaign last summer, it took the versatile Muller 999 minutes to score his first Bundesliga goalĀ this season -- a drought which lasted into December.

But the 2014 World Cup winner told ESPN FC's Raphael Honigstein that his lack of success has not caused any "negative" or "self-destructive" feelings.

"I don't know if I'm thinking too much. I try to work hard, maybe a little harder than during spells when everything [feels easy]," Muller said. "But I'm not negative. Usually, I'm a very positive guy, I try to think about the next chance, the next game, the next opportunity to play well. But of course when everybody talks about you -- I know my situation, my stats are not the same as in the last few years -- I have fewer arguments [in my favour] when it comes to talking with the media.

"But I don't think I think too much. I work hard, I try to help my teammates, and I think about the game [itself], why I'm not in the right position at the right moment. But I can't influence everything on the pitch that would help me. I can't think about the other guys. I try to focus on my game, and look to analyse the reasons [for not scoring] objectively."

Muller has scored 156 goals in 377 games for Bayern in all competitions, and he admits to watching goals he's scored in the past.

"Sometimes I watch past goals, but I don't watch them because I think that it'll help me to score in the next game," he said. "I'm not at that point, I'm not sad, or feel self-destructive or negative. I have to work hard and give my all in games and training sessions. There's not more I can do."

Muller's struggles have not been in isolation, however. Bayern's offensive output under new manager Carlo Ancelotti has at times failed to reach the standards set by Pep Guardiola's teams before them. And Muller says his performances have suffered as a result.

"When the team's not playing well offensively, it's always a problem for me because I'm not an individualistic player. I don't take the ball in the middle of the pitch and dribble past six guys. When our positioning and ball game and passing is not that good, I'm struggling as well.

"I can score from set pieces and so on but I have to be involved in the combinations, make my runs without the ball, go deep. And that's the next problem: Teams defend very deep against us, leaving not much space between the last defender and goalkeeper.

"But I hope that the biggest reason for our lame attacking play was the pitch. That's my big hope. We had problems at Bremen and Freiburg with the pitches but the last few games at the Allianz Arena, against Leipzig and Wolfsburg, were every good. Also at Mainz, they had a good pitch. So I'm hopeful."

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