The Bundesliga champions are expected to jettison several squad members as Niko Kovac seeks to leave his mark on the team <\/p>\n
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has stated that the Bundesliga champions will scale back the size of their squad over the coming months as it is \u201ctoo big\u201d, with a handful of players expected to depart the Allianz Arena by December.<\/p>\n
Manager Niko Kovac has eyed up an influx of new blood at the club since his arrival, though he has only secured the signature\u00a0of Leon Goretzka from Schalke so far, with a deal agreed for\u00a0Alphonso Davies to arrive from the Vancouver Whitecaps in the new year.<\/p>\n
A move for France international and World Cup winner Benjamin Pavard has also been mooted as a transfer for next summer but Bayern are expected to look to recruit other new faces, necessitating a potential jettisoning of squad members from the fringes.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n Speaking to SportBILD, Hoeness was adamant that the club would need to sell members of its championship-winning side in order to scale back by the end of the year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe squad is too big,\u201d the club president stated. “We will have to hand in one, two or three players by Christmas at the latest.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge previously confirmed that defender Jerome Boateng has held talks about a potential move to Paris Saint-Germain and midfielder Arturo Vidal has been linked with both Inter Milan and Manchester United following his omission from Kovac\u2019s pre-season squad.<\/p>\n Another player linked with a departure from Bavaria is Spain international Thiago Alcantara, though Hoeness refused to speculate on the midfielder\u2019s future following rumours of interest from United and Premier League rivals Chelsea.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s a question they have to ask the coach, not me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n One player the president is keen to retain however is James Rodriguez. The Real Madrid playmaker is on loan at the Allianz Arena until 2019, and Hoeness has stressed that the club would reject any attempts to lure the 2014 World Cup Golden Boot winner away. When asked whether Bayern would look to secure the Colombia star\u2019s services beyond his current deal, Hoeness stated that there was \u201cno doubt\u201d that the club would look to sign him permanently from the Champions League winners, adding \u201cthank God we have one more year left.”\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bundesliga champions are expected to jettison several squad members as Niko Kovac seeks to leave his mark on the team Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has stated that the Bundesliga champions will scale back the size of their squad over the coming months as it is \u201ctoo big\u201d, with a handful of players expected…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n
\u201cWe would never have agreed. He has a valid contract with us.\u201d<\/p>\n