There’s been more drama from FC Hollywood last week as the deeds and words of two Bayern Munich players had long rendered the 90 moderately entertaining minutes in a 1-1 draw with Schalke immaterial.

The result in itself left the biggest and richest club in Germany in eighth place of the table with only 20 points from 12 matches. By Bavarian standards, this should have been an apocalyptic enough scenario.

Yet, Luca Toni’s premature exit from the Allianz Arena at halftime and Philipp Lahm’s ‘scandalous’ interview with Suddeutsche Zeitung stirred more talk in the press.

Lahm was disciplined after he launched an astonishing attack on the club, trainer Louis van Gaal and his fellow players. The club’s reaction centred on the player’s violation of the code of conduct, not the substance of his analysis and fined their vice-captain an unprecedented sum, estimated around e50,000, for telling the truth.

“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 strikers and absence of a second decent full-back. He described Bayern as a squad full of big names and even bigger holes.

Lahm’s words must have cut through the Bayern’s faithfuls’ hearts like a knife through butter. You can argue about the details but everybody knows that Lahm has largely hit the nail on its head. Coming from a man who is normally so calm and composed, his words clearly exposed the atmosphere of a club in immense turmoil.

Since winning the Champions League in 2001, Bayern Munich have continually lost ground in Europe despite becoming financially stronger. Too many coaches took the blame for crashing out against better and more cleverly engineered teams in Europe while the board kept spending large sums on players who failed to fit in the system.

One area that perhaps has let Bayern down this season is the transfer policy persued by the club over the summer. That was precisely how Bayern paid a record sum for an unneeded striker like Mario Gomez when the club already had Miroslav Klose, Luca Toni and Ivica Olic. In a 4-3-3 typically Dutch system preferred by Van Gaal, only one of them can play at a time. With Gomez’s money, Bayern could have bought a good goalkeeper and a top-class right full-back. But the Bayern board decided instead that if Jose Bosingwa was unavailable, it would be best to recruit a one-footed central defender like Edson Braafheid, with no offensive prowess.

Lahm raise a really valid point here. Bayern’s lack of a consistent footballing philosophy has caused the once brilliant German side to become mediocre at best. The main advantage of having a long standing philosophy is that all players understand what is expected of them, their team mates and what they must do individually and collectively to win.

One cannot deny that Bayern include a massive wealth of talent. However, Lahm is absolutely correct – the current team has been assembled from a number of individuals who were deemed good but did not necessarily fit into any game plan. Whenever Ribery and Robben area active, Bayern can play a very attractive, attacking style of football, but without them, the team is devoid of any creativity. The team has adapted to having no real playmaker. When you eliminate one or both wingers from the equation, you are left with a rather average side.

This, not to mention that talented players like Sosa, Ottl, Baumjohann or Breno have been completely overlooked.

To direct the world’s third largest club, with no less than 135,000 members, demands enormous authority. Trainer Van Gaal has this authority but his doctrine has so far failed to work its magic in a place where so many other coaching icons before him have fallen short. Van Gaal’s task will ultimately be to turn Bayern into a solid unit, but if Van Gaal is short of support from the senior layers of administration at the club, his fate is doomed.

Over in the German media, Van Gaal’s image of Dutch aloofness and arrogance continues to plague him. Undeniably though Bayern Munich aren’t delivering on the pitch and the trainer’s tactics are hardly helping matters.

With so much expectation following a heavy summer of spending, Van Gaal needs to get his ideas over to this Bayern side quickly. As their Champions League campaign hangs on a thread, heads might well start rolling before the season’s end.

Philipp Lahm, who might well be on his way to Barcelona or a big Premiership club come the summer, would have had the last laugh.