Goal machine Lewandowski

– Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski (above) is poised to extend his dream start to the season today with the Polish star striker in the form of his career.

Unusually for the defending champions, Bayern are not having things their own way in the Bundesliga and are fourth in the table after four matches before hosting Cologne today.

However, it’s business as usual for Lewandowski in front of goal, scoring nine times in his last six games in all competitions.

After hitting the back of the net in last Saturday’s 1-1 draw against league leaders RB Leipzig, Lewandowski warned he is just warming up: “I will play better in the coming weeks.”

He has seven league goals from four league games, but both Leipzig’s Germany striker Timo Werner and Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer are on his tail with five strikes each.

Werner can add to his purple patch of seven goals in six games in all competitions at Werder Bremen tonight.

Lewandowski, the Bundesliga’s top-scorer for the last two seasons, is no stranger to league scoring records since his jaw-dropping five goals in nine blistering minutes for Bayern in September 2015.

He racked up his 200th Bayern goal on Wednesday, a classic poacher’s effort after capitalising on mistakes by Red Star Belgrade defenders in a 3-0 win in their opening Champions League match.

If he scores against Cologne at the Allianz Arena, he will become the first Bayern player for 19 years to have scored in each of the first five rounds of German league matches since former Germany striker Carsten Jancker.

Lewandowski’s magnificent seven in the league includes a hat-trick last month’s 3-0 romp at Schalke and he has never before started a season in such impressive form.

He also has a habit of scoring against Cologne, who he has never lost against, with nine goals in 12 games.

Lewandowski has 209 Bundesliga goals for Bayern and ex-club Borussia Dortmund, still way behind 1970s goal-machine Gerd Mueller, who scored 365 times in Germany’s top flight.

However, the prospect of breaking Mueller’s mind-blowing record of 40 league goals in the 1971/72 season is still the stuff of legends, even for Lewandowski.

“It’s still too early in the season to think of that,” he said recently on the matter. – AFP