Coach Kovac halts Bayern rotation in bid

Bayern Munich coach Niko Kovac will stop using squad rotation to the end of the year in a bid to end the Bundesliga champions’ inconsistent form. “I have said, okay, rotation will happen but only if someone is injured or is really on the floor,” Kovac said yesterday.

“The players not currently in the team will have to adapt to the new situation. This is certainly not pleasant but that’s football,” Kovac added. Bayern face Nuremberg today having not won at home in the league since mid-September.

They sit fourth in the table, nine points behind league leaders Borussia Dortmund. But their last games included a 5-1 thrashing of Benfica in the Champions League and a 2-1 win away to Werder Bremen domestically. “The squad is known — and the first eleven at the moment as well,” said Kovac.

That means recently ill defender Mats Hummels and the injured James Rodriguez and Javi Martinez may have to wait to return to the side. “If a player then gets a chance, which he has to work for in training, he has to use it,” Kovac said.

The 47-year-old boss also played down the prospect of rebuilding the squad significantly in the January transfer window. “The clubs who have to do something in winter have a big problem because the market is not so big,” he said. Kovac branded prices in the coming window “astronomical” and that “we will — as of now — do nothing.”

Canadian teenager Alphonso Davies has already been signed by Bayern from the Vancouver Whitecaps in the North American MLS and is training with his new teammates. He will be eligible to play from January 1, 2019. Before the second half of the Bundesliga begins for Bayern, away to Hoffenheim on January 18, Bayern will attend a training camp in Qatar and take part in the Telekom Cup in Dusseldorf. Bayern said the men’s team would go to Doha from January 4 to 10 before the Dusseldorf tournament on January 13.

The women’s team at the club will also have a camp in Doha, January 27 to February 3, before their season begins against champions Wolfsburg on February 17. Bayern said the visit of the women’s team will also “support women’s sport in Arab countries.”