Bayern Munich 5-0 Besiktas: 5 talking points

Bayern Munich made a giant step towards the quarter-finals of this season's UEFA Champions League, having swept aside Besiktas at the Allianz Arena.

Bayern were dominant and ruthless in victory as they have their sights set on the last-8

Domagoj Vida's sending off after just 16 minutes proved to be decisive during the first leg, as Bayern were ruthless in attack from then on and had the numerical advantage to make things increasingly tough for their Turkish visitors.

Despite this, it was not until the 43rd minute that they took the lead, from which the floodgates then opened. Thomas Muller broke the deadlock and Kingsley Coman made it 2-0 shortly after the interval.

Muller would then grab his brace, before Lewandowski would round off the scoring with a brace of his own - both within the final 11 minutes of the match - destroying any chance of an unlikely Besiktas comeback during the second leg in a fortnight's time.

Here, we take a look at the talking points from this first leg clash:

5) Muller continues to thrive under Heynckes

Muller and Heynckes have always had a seemingly strong relationship

Whilst playing under Carlo Ancelotti this season, Muller had just one goal and two assists to his name. In addition to that, last season Muller only scored five all year, an underwhelming amount considering his tally across the previous three seasons in the league were 20 and 13 twice.

In those years, he found it easy to play in Jupp Heynckes and Pep Guardiola's tactical setup. He was either being deployed as Bayern's centre forward, or as the number ten and was showing his ability to create chances and equally score them too.

With Ancelotti at the helm, he found it a more difficult task to nail down a regular place in the starting eleven and his form suffered as a result. Unsurprisingly, after the Italian was sacked and previous manager Jupp Heynckes returned to manage the club for his fourth spell, Muller re-found his form.

Since his arrival, Muller has netted eight and assisted six more across all competitions - with some of those being substitute appearances too. He has become rejuvenated under his old boss because he's a manager who plays to the strengths of him and the team as a collective unit.

At 28, Muller still has plenty of years ahead of him and it's refreshing to see he's performing again while playing regularly in an ever-improving Bayern side.

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