Bayern Munich 3-1 Schalke 04 - 5 talking points
Bayern Munich hosted Schalke at the Allianz Arena, knowing full well a victory would take them within five points of the league leaders as Borussia Dortmund surrendered a three-goal cushion in twelve second half minutes to draw 3-3. The Bavarian giants were clinical right from the get-go as they ran out comfortable 3-1 winners.
Teenage striker Ahmed Kutucu was on hand to polish off a brilliant free-flowing counter attacking move from Schalke as he cancelled out Jeffrey Bruma's early own-goal but goals from Robert Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry ensured that Bayern secured all three points.
In a game where the record Bundesliga champions dominated for large parts, the Royal-Blues didn't have too many bright spots as it was another below par display, especially at the back, and Domenico Tedesco will look to set things right before their Champions League showdown against Manchester City.
That said, let's look at some of the talking points from the game.
#1 - Schalke looked disjointed as a team
Playing a wide 4-4-2 with Nabil Bentaleb and Sebastian Rudy sitting at the heart of midfield, Schalke looked well equipped to deal with Bayern Munich's attacks, at least on paper. That wasn't to be the case and they got completely overrun in midfield, so much that Tedesco had to take emergency action by replacing Rudy with Omar Mascarell as early as the 33rd minute. In defense, they didn't do themselves any favors as Jeffrey Bruma inadvertently pull the ball in to his own net from a James Rodriguez through ball and his partner, Salif Sane, looked uncharacteristically sloppy as well. The Schalke boss was visibly frustrated with his players on the touchline and had no qualms in admitting that his team did not deserve to get a positive result in the post match press conference.