Bayern Munich coach Louis van Gaal says his team's slow start is a result of his players nursing a collective hangover after their exploits at the World Cup. The 2009-10 Bundesliga champ and Champions League runner-up are in ninth place having earned only eight points in six games and sit 10 points behind leader Mainz.

“It’s always difficult when a team has a lot of players at the World Cup and they cannot enjoy a good preparation,” the Dutchman said. “This year was a very extreme case. So we had to do our preparations by playing in the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the Champions League, and that is naturally a bad thing.”

Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Miroslav Klose and Thomas Mueller helped Germany to finish third in South Africa while captain Mark van Bommel and winger Arjen Robben played in the Netherlands side which lost to Spain in the final.

“In five of our Bundesliga matches, we have played well, we have always been the better team and we created more chances, but we are not finding it easy to score goals," said Van Gaal.