Bayern warm up for Napoli with Nuremberg rout

Bayern Munich warmed up for Wednesday’s visit of Napoli in the Champions League with a 4-0 hammering of Bavarian neighbours Nuremberg on Saturday at home in the German league.

It was Bayern’s eighth straight home win as Germany stars Mario Gomez, twice, and Bastian Schweinsteiger, plus France playmaker Franck Ribery, all netted.

But the victory may have come at a high cost as Schweinsteiger limped off in the 71st minute and is an injury doubt for the Napoli game.

“Bastian took a kick to the calf. That is normally a very difficult injury, which takes time to recover,” explained Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes.

“We have to wait and see whether or not it is a calf strain. Then we can say more, but at the moment it doesn’t look good.”

Borussia Moenchengladbach were the last visiting team to score in Munich when they poached a shock 1-0 win on August 7 and Bayern have since turned the Allianz Arena into a fortress by scoring 33 goals without reply.

The win extends Bayern’s lead at the top of the Bundesliga table to four points, while they are two points clear at the top of Group A in the Champions League.

“You can see from the reaction of the players they are having fun. That is very important to help play successfully,” added Heynckes.

“During the half-time break, I appealed to the players to keep a clean sheet and that’s exactly what they did.”

Before the weekend, goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller of defending champions Borussia Dortmund said the Bundesliga title race was far from over, but on this sort of form, Bayern look unstoppable.

Gomez opened the scoring after just two minutes before Schweinsteiger hit a thunder-bolt shot from the edge of the area on 19 minutes.

Ribery then made it 3-0 at the break when he found the net with a superb individual goal six minutes before half-time.

Germany midfielder Toni Kroos set up Gomez for his 50th goal since joining Bayern in June 2009, beating the defence and crossing for his international team-mate to turn the ball into an empty net on 68 minutes.

Dortmund drop to third in the table after they were held 1-1 at Stuttgart, where the kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes as the guests were caught in a motorway traffic jam en route.

Germany defender Serdar Tasci put Stuttgart ahead on 22 minutes, but on the stroke of half-time teenage Germany star Mario Goetze put in a superb ball for Shinji Kagawa to square for Lukasz Piszczek to put Dortmund level.

Schalke 04 take over second in the table, four points behind Bayern, after they enjoyed a 2-1 win over Hoffenheim.

Gladbach are fourth in the table after Germany’s rising star Marco Reus scored both their goals in a 2-1 win over Hanover.

Werder Bremen have the chance to get among the league leaders if they can beat Mainz on Saturday night.

Michael Ballack could be doubtful for Bayer Leverkusen’s visit to Champions League Group E opponents Valencia on Tuesday after fracturing his nose during the 1-0 win over rock-bottom Freiburg on Friday.

Ballack scored the only goal of the game after two minutes to boost his side’s flagging league campaign, only to be forced off in the 65th minute after a clash with Freiburg’s Jan Rosenthal.