Next Tuesday, 3rd of February 2015, the all-powerful German champions, Bayern Munich, will entertain a somewhat inconsistent Schalke 04 at the magnificent Allianz Arena for round 19 of the Bundesliga, a match of the utmost importance for FCB who suffered their first defeat of the season last Friday against Wolfsburg.

The Winter break was bad for the Bundesliga reigning champions, Bayern Munich, who were completely schooled when they visited Wolfsburg last Friday. Pep Guardiola’s men suffered their first defeat of the season and failed to put an end to the home side’s impressive undefeated home streak. In just a single match, Bayern conceded the same amount of goals they suffered in the first seventeen fixtures of the season and exposed severe frailties on their defence line, who were probably inebriated by the North German frost. Four goals in 90 minutes, three of them from quick counter-attack movements, were the result of an unsynchronized and uninspired defence line that sucumbed to Wolfsburg’s rapid attacking movements quite easily.

Guardiola’s effective short passing system didn’t work at the Volkswagen Arena as the current German champions failed plenty of passes, especially up front, thus allowing Wolfsburg to initiate quick and deadly counter-attacks.

The upcoming home match against Schalke will certainly be a good opportunity for Bayern to redeem themselves and to return to wins in front of their enthusiast supporters, who weren’t particularly amused with the team’s performance last Friday. Next Tuesday’s clash will also present a chance for the Bavarian team to avenge last August’s 1-1 draw against Schalke.

For that particular match, Pep Guardiola will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of Rafinha, Lahn, Thiago Alcantara, Javi Martinez and Ribery, all currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Schalke, the Miners managed to win their first match after the long Winter break by beating Hannover at Veltins-Arena by 1-0, thanks to a goal by Höger in the first-half. It wasn’t a particularly impressive performance from Roberto Di Matteo’s boys, far from that, but it proved to be enough to overcome the visitors, who had in fact more ball possession percentage and almost the same amount of goal attempts of Schalke.

For the upcoming complicated trip to Bavaria, the Italian manager will not be able to rely on one of the team’s most important assets, the Dutch forward Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who is suspended after being sent off last Saturday against Hannover.

Despite their recent upset at the hands of the surprising Wolfsburg, Bayern Munich are firm favourites to win the upcoming clash against Schalke.

Bayern Munich

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

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Schalke 04

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

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Possible Line-ups

Bayern Munich (4-1-4-1) -  Neuer - Rode - Dante - Boateng - Bernat - Xabi Alonso - Schweinsteiger - Robben - Müller - Götze - Lewandowski

Schalke 04 (4-2-3-1) - Giefer - Uchida - Höwedes - Nastasic - Kirchhoff - Fuchs - Boateng - Mayer - Neustäder - Sam - Choupo-Moting

Prediction

Bayern Munich 2 Schalke 04 0