Bayern forward Thomas Müller is in contention to face Wolfsburg after missing last weekend's 5-1 win over Schalke through injury
Bayern forward Thomas Müller is in contention to face Wolfsburg after missing last weekend's 5-1 win over Schalke through injury

Next stop Wolfsburg for Bayern's Bundesliga express

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Wolfsburg - VfL Wolfsburg's Volkswagen Arena marks the next stop for FC Bayern München's runaway Bundesliga express on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 14:30 GMT/ 15:30 CET).

'It felt good'

The league leaders are fast closing in on their 23rd Bundesliga title and travel to Lower Saxony buoyed by the return of fit-again trio , and .

"It's great for me to have so many options," enthused head coach Pep Guardiola, the driving force behind FCB's seemingly unstoppable convoy. Müller resumed team training on Thursday after shaking off a thigh strain, while wing sensations Ribery and Shaqiri both made fleeting appearances for France and Switzerland respectively in midweek.

"It felt good to play a few minutes against the Netherlands; it helped me get back into the swing of things," Ribery explained following a month on the sidelines nursing a buttock complaint. Matchday 23 hat-trick hero Arjen Robben (thigh) is also hoping to jump straight back on board in Wolfsburg, despite watching his club mate's international cameo from the sidelines on Wednesday night: "I think I can play."

'A serious test'


The mere mention of bolstered Bayern ranks would rightly shake most sides to the core, not least a Wolfsburg outfit preparing to bounce back from last weekend's 6-2 drubbing away to 1899 Hoffenheim. The Wolves' tilt at the top four has blown hot and cold, but Guardiola is refusing to read too much into the inconsistency that has plagued the 2008/09 Bundesliga champions' campaign.

"Wolfsburg are a great team," the Catalan acknowledged. "It's going to be a big challenge for us. I've looked back at the reverse fixture and saw just how bad we were. It was our worst game of the season, but I also saw how quick their transition play is. It's going to be a serious test before the Arsenal game [in the Champions League]."

'It's frustrating'


The men from Munich have dropped points just once in the league since their purported low ebb against the der Auto City Club on Matchday 7 - incidentally a narrow 1-0 victory settled by Müller's solitary strike - drawing in Leverkusen before stringing together a stellar 15-match winning run. Three points on Saturday would see them set a new Bundesliga best mark for successive victories (16) or, as Guardiola put it, "take another step towards defending our title."

Keen to derail the Bavarian bullet train and get his own side back on track is Wolfsburg head coach Dieter Hecking. The Wolves trail fourth-placed FC Schalke 04 by just two points, but are fully aware there are few roadblocks out there quite like Bayern. "They had 16 players away on international duty during the week," the 49-year-old noted. "That speaks volumes about the individual quality within their squad [...] It's frustrating to be without [Luiz Gustavo and Christian Träsch], but we'll make the best of what we have."

Possible line-ups:

Wolfsburg: Benaglio - Ochs, Naldo, Knoche, Rodriguez - Arnold, Medojevic - D. Caligiuri, de Bruyne, Perisic - Dost

Bayern: Neuer - Rafinha, J. Boateng, Javi Martinez, Alaba - Lahm, Thiago - T. Müller, T. Kroos, Ribery - Mandzukic

Christopher Mayer-Lodge

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Take a step back in time and check out Wolfsburg's milestone win over Bayern courtesy of the Bundesliga's official YouTube channel: