David Alaba Injury Is Big Blow for Bayern Alongside Absences of Robben, Ribery

Bayern Munich haven't had the best of times over the past week or two, suffering a first home Bundesliga defeat of the season to Borussia Monchengladbach in their last game and now losing another star player to injury over the international week.

David Alaba was confirmed by Sky Sports to have torn ligaments in his left knee while playing a friendly match for Austria against Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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David Alaba is expected to be out for around two months with a knee injury #UCL pic.twitter.com/cN8S6Riihc

— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 1, 2015"

While the loss of Alaba—a fantastic performer of late and consistent over the entire season for Bayern—will be tough enough for manager Pep Guardiola to take, it is even worse for the team considering the current absentees, including attacking stars Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery, which limits the manager's options considerably.

Alaba the Great

A versatile and enormously talented all-round player, Alaba has been of particular importance for Bayern of late with his set-piece prowess: He scored a free-kick against Eintracht Braunschweig in the DFB-Pokal at the start of the month and followed it up with another against Werder Bremen, with the team struggling at the time to break down their opponents.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

Driving forward from his midfield position, the most regular area he has started of late, Alaba brings poise and pace to the central areas for Bayern, as well as his obvious technical ability and his work rate.

Of course, his ability as a player marks him out as a talent worth having for Bayern, but for this manager in particular, his traits on the pitch are even more important.

Guardiola's Tinkering

Alaba's great benefit offered to the Bayern team is that he can play not just in midfield, centrally as he is, but also far more advanced, out wide or from left-back. In particular, he lets the manager switch from a fluid 3-4-3 to a more structured three-man midfield or anything in between if Guardiola so chooses—and he does indeed choose to alter with some frequency.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

While Juan Bernat is obviously a tremendous outlet and an in-form player down the left side from defence, Alaba cleverly tucks in behind him or links up infield with the Spaniard, helping to get the best out of his thrusting runs.

Take that away and it is debatable whether Sebastian Rode, for example, could come in and do quite as good a job, technically and tactically, but with Ribery out and not likely to play at the weekend and Robben injured against Gladbach, Bayern's offensive options and the normal "guaranteed" starters are looking far more thin than usual.

Guardiola will probably be looking at Mario Gotze, Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski starting in a front three at the weekend; an immensely talented troika, of course, but with not much after them left in the squad to change things up in-game.

Bayern's Aims

It just so happens that Bayern's match at the weekend is against the resurgent Borussia Dortmund, unbeaten in seven since rediscovering their ability to win matches and now up to 10th place in the table.

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A tough week lies ahead for Bayern. A trip to Dortmund on Saturday will be followed by an away Pokal game against Leverkusen on Wednesday.

— Bavarian Tweets (@BavarianTweets) April 1, 2015"

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ESPN headline "Bayern Munich ready to make peace and end Dortmund feud" - Good timing, now that BVB are a mangled corpse of a competitor

— Clark Whitney (@Mr_Bundesliga) April 1, 2015"

Though Bayern remain 10 points clear at the top, a second consecutive defeat allied to all those injuries might just make a few people peer awkwardly over their shoulder if Wolfsburg close the gap considerably by beating bottom club Stuttgart convincingly.

The treble is still on for Bayern as they chase silverware in the domestic cup and the Champions League this season, but the absence of Alaba—likely until the end of the campaign—is as big a blow as Guardiola could have suffered at this stage, and the manager will have to juggle his resources accordingly to ensure the wins keep flowing.

Follow @karlmatchett