The press pack hardly bothered to write down Felix Magath's predictably sarcastic post-match statements, even Louis van Gaal was mostly left alone after yet another disappointing result. It was a strangely muted reaction to a 1-1 draw against Schalke that left the richest, biggest club in Germany in eighth place in the table. Eighth. With 20 points from 12 matches. By Bavarian standards, this should have been an apocalyptic enough scenario for Roland Emmerich to turn up at the Allianz Arena and shoot some additional footage for the "2012" DVD release. But the words and deeds of two Bayern players had long rendered the 90 moderately entertaining minutes immaterial, along with the result.

Luca Toni's indiscretion was, on the face of it, relatively minor. The Italian striker had left the stadium shortly after half-time following his substitution by Van Gaal. It was an act of mindless petulance, born out of a frustrating afternoon chasing too many overhit crosses and misplaced passes. Maybe he already knew that Marcello Lippi wouldn't call him up for Italy's friendlies the next day. In any case, he apologised to the team and manager yesterday and will be let off lightly, with a fine of €10,000 (£8,900). That's just under nine hours' worth of work for him.

Philipp Lahm, however, won't get away that cheaply if the Bayern board is to believed. "He'll pay an unprecedented fine", thundered Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. The left-back had given Süddeutsche Zeitung the most frank, no-holds-barred player interview imaginable before the match, a one-page point-by-point deconstruction of the club's perennially shambolic transfer policy and incredible lack of strategic planning.

"Top teams in the Champions League have first-class players in seven, eight positions – we don't," Lahm said. "Other clubs have a system, a philosophy, and buy the players accordingly. We don't. It's not enough to buy good players, one has to develop a team," he added. He specifically mentioned the lack of creative guile in midfield, an oversupply of centre-forwards and absence of a second decent full-back. It's a squad full of big names and even bigger holes. A 13-year-old Football Manager aficionado in deepest Nepal could tell you as much.

Franz Beckenbauer unwittingly summed up the delusion at board level when he said it was "the best team we ever had" before the start of the season. "Of all the best teams ever in recent years, this is surely the worst," commented Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Lahm was careful to avoid personal attacks and broadly supported Van Gaal, praising his tactical expertise and thoroughness. "We analyse our mistakes after every game, unlike last season," said the 25-year-old, waving an imaginary hand at Jürgen Klinsmann.

You can argue about the details but friends and foes know that Lahm has largely hit the nail on the head. Since winning the Champions League in 2001, the club has continually lost ground in Europe despite becoming financially stronger and stronger. Too many managers took the blame for crashing out against better, more cleverly engineered teams in Europe while the board kept spending big on players who had scored the odd goal against Bayern in the past or looked as if they might fit the antiquated ideal of a Führungsspieler (leadership figure) in the Effenberg mould. You might call that "a philosophy" of sorts, but international football has moved on.

With depressing predictability, the club reaction centred on Lahm's violation of the code of conduct, not the substance of his analysis. "Club vice-captain Philipp Lahm, who gave an interview openly critical of the club, the coach and his team-mates, has violated internal club rules in a flagrant and inexcusable manner," said a terse press release. Bayern had no chance to exercise the usual copy approval as Lahm had organised the interview through his agent, Roman Grill. The player knew too well that his employers wouldn't enjoy hearing the truth.

Uli Hoeness fingered Grill for the story – "he wants to work for Bayern" – and criticised Lahm for his bad performances in a blatant attempt to divert attention. But, deep down, the general manager might feel that Lahm is right. In May 2008 he turned down lucrative offers from Manchester United and Barcelona when Hoeness promised to build a team that could challenge in Europe. The opposite has happened. Lahm knew he would face sanctions for saying so but clearly felt it was a price worth paying. He has done his club and maybe German club football as a whole an enormous favour. If Bayern are honest enough to have a debate about the wrongs and wrongs of recent years, that is.

Talking points

• Eintracht Frankfurt's manager, Michael Skibbe, was never a loudmouth, quite the opposite: Bild famously dubbed him "the mistake whisperer" during his time as Rudi Völler's No2 in the national team. The 44-year-old spent the last few years peddling his puppy dog eyes in the face of continued underachievement but has now managed to find a club that is evidently even less ambitious than him. Following the 4-0 defeat to the league leaders, Leverkusen, in the BayArena, Skibbe took the club – and the CEO, Heribert Bruchhagen – to task for languishing in their comfort zone. "Everything needs to improve," he insisted. "The club needs to change gear otherwise we'll get weaker and weaker." There were too many average players in the squad, he said, and the scouting was poor. "This is not about money but about finding and nurturing the right players." Some reporters have interpreted this outburst as a death wish. Skibbe, though, has only pointed out the obvious: for a club with the size, history and potential of Frankfurt, Eintracht have long been far too happy to punch below their weight.

• A drunk streaker with a silly hat provided the sole relief in a dreadful relegation battle in the Olympiastadion. Following the 1-0 home defeat against Köln, Hertha are almost starkers in the points department (four from 36) and deep in the proverbial.

"We've got shit on our feet," said the manager, Friedhelm Funkel. Three immensely flattering points for the visitors away cannot disguise the fact that FC Köln and Lukas Podolski are fast heading for a post-Las-Vegas-wedding type of depression: getting hitched (again), they both realise, wasn't perhaps the best idea. A quickie divorce in January would be the best solution for everyone concerned but you can't overestimate the couple's tremendous capacity for self-deception, either: Poldi and "Kölle" could easily keep up the pretence all the way to Bundesliga 2.

Meanwhile, a couple of players were busy slagging off the mumbo-jumbo methods ("power biscuits", "energy pendulum") of the club physiotherapist Dieter Trzolek on Facebook. Someone forwarded the incriminating evidence to the general manager, Michael Meier, who called it a "kindergarten affair". The ex-Dortmund supremo was naturally far too busy circumventing the league's stringent licensing laws with a Schalke-type ploy: Kölner Express revealed that Köln sold off the catering rights for the stadium to a subsidiary company for €7m, who in turn borrowed €7m from a bank. Genius. What did Michel Platini say the other day? "In Germany, debt is not accepted."

Results Leverkusen 4-0 Frankfurt, Bayern 1-1 Schalke, Hoffenheim 1-2 Wolfsburg, Bochum 1-2 Freiburg, Gladbach 0-0 Stuttgart, Mainz 1-0 Nürnberg, Hannover 2-2 Hamburg, Hertha 0-1 Köln, Werder 1-1 Dortmund.

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