Tired Bayern out to finish 2015 on high

Dortmund to play Cologne

Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski (left), and Darmstadt’s Aytac Sulu challenge for the ball during the German soccer cup (DFB Pokal) match between FC Bayern Munich and SV Darmstadt 98 at the Allianz Arena Stadium in Munich, Germany,

on Dec 15. (AP)

BERLIN, Dec 18, (AFP): Struggling Hanover 96 have the chance to take advantage of jaded Bayern Munich on Saturday and secure their first win over the German league leaders for four years.

Bayern head to Hanover for their final game of 2015 with a five-point lead in the table, but with Pep Guardiola’s Bavarian giants admitting fatigue is a factor.

“We’ll pick ourselves up once again and give it our all to take the three points from Hanover, even if we haven’t got many players left,” admitted Germany forward Thomas Mueller.

Bayern are missing injured stars Franck Ribery, Mario Goetze, Juan Bernat and David Alaba for their final match before the month-long winter break starts on Sunday.

Regardless of the result in Hanover, Bayern will be top of the table at Christmas for the fifth year in succession with goalkeeper Manuel Neuer set to make his 300th Bundesliga appearance.

Having struggled to a 2-0 league win over Ingolstadt last Saturday, Bayern laboured to a 1-0 German Cup win over Darmstadt on Tuesday to book their quarter-final place.

It kept alive their dreams of winning the treble of Champions League, Bundesliga and cup titles this season.

Mueller admitted the Darmstadt win “was not a Gala performance” while captain Philipp Lahm says the Bayern squad has been running low on energy for weeks.

“The players’ condition isn’t so great, because we’ve played a lot of Aksel Lund Svindal speeds down the course during an alpine ski, men’s World Cup super-G, in Val Gardena, Italy,

Dec 18. (AP)