Bayern Munich Overcome CSKA Moscow but Still Look Susceptible at the Back

Bayern Munich continued their strong start to the Champions League with an acceptable 1-0 win over Russian opponents CSKA Moscow in Tuesday's early kick-off. 

Pep Guardiola's side has always been considered strong favourites ahead of the tie due to their double win over the very same team in last season's group stage, as well as CSKA's disappointing 5-1 defeat to AS Roma in the opening group game. 

Yet instead of a convincing win from the former European champions, what Bayern instead presented was a tight one-goal lead between two sides that eventually had nothing but a penalty to separate them.

Guardiola's side may have once again picked up all three points, but they looked far from convincing. 

The most troubling aspect of such a performance was just how open the German champions looked at the back. As the old cliche goes, you can only beat what's in front of you, but even a lowly side like CSKA threatened to upset on Tuesday night.

Guardiola has a considerable problem in his central defensive area, with the continued demise of Brazilian defender Dante. Where the former 'Gladbach star used to lead this defensive line, he now pulls at its strings and exposes it from one game to the next. 

To the coach's credit, he probably had little intention of using the defender as a first-team starter this season; however, long-term injuries to Javi Martinez and Holger Badstuber have since forced his hand into playing the far-from-stable alternative. 

Similarly, new signing Mehdi Benatia looked far from convincing against the pace and raw power of CSKA's sole striker, Ahmed Musa.

The Nigerian forward had very little to work off throughout the game as the Russian side sat deep in their own half but still managed to pluck the ball out of the air and outsprint Bayern's new centre-back towards Manuel Neuer's goal.  

What will worry Bayern fans at the moment isn't what they saw in Moscow, but what they could potentially find themselves projected to later on in the competition when the real big players across Europe come up against them. 

Few Bavarian fans will have forgotten the harsh lesson Real Madrid taught them all last season, when the now European champions took great pleasure in truly undoing Guardiola's irregular tactics and naive defensive formation. 

At times Bayern looked as though they were playing with simply two defenders in reserve, while the rest of the team took turns swarming the opposition's half. 

While the two aforementioned central defenders held their line, left-back David Alaba and Philipp Lahm on the opposite wing took great pleasure in running forward at every opportunity, with only Xabi Alonso in central midfield keeping an eye on CSKA's counter-attacks. 

This caused its own problems as central attacking midfielder Roman Eremenko occasionally found himself in far too much space with plenty of time to take a shot at Neuer's goal. Although he never challenged the German 'keeper, he did strike the crossbar just before half-time. 

This is a similar formation to that of the one Guardiola deployed against Koln in the Bundesliga over the weekend, which saw Alonso once again sit just in front of Alaba and Jerome Boateng (the two central defenders in this game), whilst Julian Bernat and Rafinha bombed forward on either wing. 

This leads to Bayern having no fewer than seven offensive players attacking in the one move or counter-attack. A ploy that may work wonders in the Bundesliga on occasion but not one to rely upon when bigger teams come calling in Europe's premier competition.

We've already seen Guardiola's side fall short against Borussia Dortmund at the start of the season in the German Super Cup, as well as teams like Schalke and almost Manchester City; two teams that put some real pressure on Bayern late on in their respective games but came out with different results.

Fortunately for the current German champions, Schalke left it a little too late to take any more than a solitary point and Manuel Pellegrini's side have looked far from convincing this season. Yet at some point a genuine threat will come along and Bayern may simply have no answer to it. 

Guardiola's side may return home from Russia with their heads held high and three points intact, but performances like that will leave very little for fans to get excited about as we move through this competition.

@Sbienkowski