BAYERN MUNICH FAILED to recover from an early Jerome Boateng red card as they fell to a 5-1 defeat against Eintracht Frankfurt that will heap more pressure on beleaguered coach Niko Kovac.
The pressure has been building on Kovac and his side shipped five more goals on a day that saw Thomas Muller make his 500th appearance for the club.
Filip Kostic and Djibril Sow scored their first goals of the season to punish the champions after Boateng was sent off inside nine minutes.
Bayern threatened a comeback through Lewandowski’s 14th league goal of the season, but David Abraham, Martin Hinteregger and Goncalo Paciencia struck in the second half to make it one league win in four matches for the visitors, who slip to fourth in the table.
Boateng was dismissed for a trip on Paciencia following a VAR check from referee Markus Schmidt, who initially showed a yellow card and awarded a penalty, before amending it to a red and a free-kick.
The hosts made the man advantage count 16 minutes later when Sow’s shot struck David Alaba and landed in the path of Kostic for a simple finish from close range.
A bad day for Bayern got even worse just after the half-hour mark as a brilliant passing move culminated in Sow calmly converting Kostic’s deflected cross at the back post.
Joshua Kimmich had a goal ruled out for offside but Bayern had one back before the interval, Lewandowski spinning away from three men and converting past Frederik Ronnow.
Any hope of a comeback was killed off by Abraham four minutes into the second half, however, with the Frankfurt skipper stabbing home Danny da Costa’s inch-perfect cross.
Abraham’s central-defensive team-mate Hinteregger headed in a fourth from a corner after 61 minutes and, after Alphonso Davies clipped the post, Paciencia rounded off the scoring late on following some good play from substitute Andre Silva.
Meanwhile, RB Leipzig thrashed Mainz 8-0 and moved above Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga table as Germany international Timo Werner had a hand in six goals.
Julian Nagelsmann’s team were 5-0 up at the interval after Marcel Sabitzer, Werner, Christopher Nkunku, Marcel Halstenberg and Yussuf Poulsen all found the net.
Werner scored again three minutes into the second half and then provided his third assist of the afternoon for Nordi Mukiele to make it 7-0 with 40 minutes still to play.
It was 8-0 when Werner swept home to complete his hat-trick three minutes from time and Leipzig’s big win, coupled with Bayern’s shock 5-1 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt, meant Nagelsmann’s side moved above the champions and into third in the Bundesliga table, four points behind leaders Borussia Monchengladbach.
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