Bayern must improve, insists van Buyten

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-21 09:00

BERLIN: Bayern Munich defender Daniel van Buyten hit the winner in Saturday's 2-1 victory over Nuremberg to put the German giants third in the Bundesliga, but insisted there is still room for improvement.

The Belgium defender headed home in the game's dying stages to give Bayern three points after Nuremberg's Maxim Choupo-Moting had earlier exposed the Munich defense with a well-taken equalizer.

Croatia forward Ivica Olic had scored Bayern's opening goal after 55 minutes.

Van Buyten's goal gave Bayern their third consecutive league win, but the Belgian said hard questions would be asked about how Choupo-Moting found so much space to exploit.

"The three points were all that mattered," said van Buyten with league leaders Hamburg and second-placed Leverkusen both in action yesterday.

"We've taken the points, so we're satisfied. It wasn't easy, Nuremberg were very defensive. We knew we had to watch out when they counter-attacked.

"We made mistakes for their goal, and we'll need to talk about that. There were a number of minor errors in quick succession and it led to their goal.

"We have to cut that out. As usual, we'll go through it all with the coach.

"The positive thing was that we never stopped believing we could win. We were rewarded at the end."

Van Buyten also scored in Tuesday's opening Champions League win at Maccabi Haifa and says Bayern must concentrate with some important games ahead, including next Saturday's trip to league leaders Hamburg.

"From time to time, you could see we've all traveled a lot recently and there were some heavy legs," said van Buyten. "We want to go back to the top of the league."

Coach Louis van Gaal was also unhappy with the defensive error which led to Nuremberg's equalizer.

"It was hard work against a very well organised but very defensive team," said the Dutchman.

"That's what I warned about before the match. We didn't play particularly well but we created chances and scored the first goal. But we made a huge error: after you've put in all the work and gone 1-0 ahead, you can't have all your players charging upfield. We should have been much more cautious. But I'm delighted we've won and I think it was deserved."

AFP