Bayern Munich sack Niko Kovac

During Sunday evening it was announced that Bayern Munich relieved manager Niko Kovac of his coaching duties after just over 1 year in charge of the Bavarian club. Bayern’s decision will come as a surprise to many considering that Kovac won 45 of his 65 games in charge as well as winning 3 trophies in the form of the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and the DFL Supercup for Bayern. However, despite the success, last season their Champions League round of 16 exit to Liverpool was the first time Bayern failed to reach the quarter-finals since 2011 in what was an underwhelming and disappointing European campaign for the German side. As well as that, Bayern have had a disappointing start to the 19/20 Bundesliga season where that have won only 5 of their opening 10 Bundesliga games and find themselves in 4th place and 4 points behind current leaders Borussia Monchengladbach.

The favourite to replace Kovac at Bayern is Jose Mourinho as he has been without a club since he was sacked by Manchester United back in December 2018. The speculation around Mourinho being appointed by the German side was increased thanks to former Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger who when questioned by Deutsche Welle quoted:

“I can imagine Mourinho in Germany.”

“I remember he was always asking me about Bayern and the Bundesliga. During our away games, there was always Bundesliga on TV”

“He really knew every single player, even from the smaller teams. He was also learning German.”

Given the fact that Mourinho himself has stated that he has turned down other positions that he has been offered as well as the quotes from Schweinsteiger, it is a strong possibility that Mourinho has been waiting for the Bayern job to become available.

Linking back to our previous point about Mourinho potentially replacing Kovac as manager of Bayern, if the move does happen the reports and rumours that have been circling for weeks that Mourinho could return to the Premier League will stop. Given the poor form and pressure that is mounting on the likes of Unai Emery, Mauricio Pochettino and Marco Silva, Mourinho has been rumoured to return to the Premier League to replace one of the under fire managers. Apart from Mourinho not other managers have been considerably linked with either of the jobs at Tottenham, Arsenal or Everton so it could be the case that in the event that Mourinho takes over at Bayern, all of the managers will keep their jobs at the respective clubs, unless the board of each clubs opts to have a temporary manager until the end of the season instead of finding a permanent replacement anyway.