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Thomas Muller penalty enough for Bayern to beat CSKA Moscow

Bayern Munich made it two wins out of two in the Champions League this season, although they were made to work hard for a 1-0 win at CSKA Moscow.

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Thomas Muller netted the only goal of the game midway through the first half, but goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was kept surprisingly busy by the hosts in a game played behind closed doors in Khimki.

Roman Eremenko also hit the post for the hosts, who followed up their 5-1 loss at Roma with another defeat, but could nevertheless take a lot of encouragement from their performance against one of the favourites for the title this season.

CSKA's players appeared like rabbits caught in Bayern's headlights for much of the first 10 minutes as they nervously allowed the Bundesliga club to attack at will.

It soon became clear that this was merely a tactic, though, with Ahmed Musa making a mess the first big chance of the game on the break, failing to beat Neuer with only the Bayern goalkeeper to beat.

Georgi Milanov then tested Neuer from the edge of the area as CSKA looked to capitalise on every brief moment of possession they managed to wrestle from Pep Guardiola's men.

An unnecessary foul by Mario Fernandes on Mario Gotze then gave Bayern the chance to take the lead, and Muller took it, firing his penalty straight down the middle.

Muller had another shot saved by Igor Akinfeev, but the most dangerous moments continued to come in front of Neuer's goal.

In the 37th minute, Musa got past Mehdi Benatia and again only had Neuer to beat, but he was denied again by the Germany number one before Zoran Tosic missed the target from the rebound.

The hosts went even closer to levelling when Eremenko curled his shot onto the outside of the far post with Neuer beaten.

Bayern heeded the warning and changed their approach in the second half, looking to keep even more of the possession in the second half, albeit without taking any risks.

Akinfeev was merely a spectator, but so too, crucially, was Neuer as Bayern defended their lead to the end, picking up a second straight 1-0 win after beating Manchester City by the same scoreline in their first Champions League game of the season.