On Wednesday, Bayern Munich will be looking to climb the Champions League standings when they lock horns with Slovan Bratislava in the final round of league phase fixtures.

preview

Vincent Kompany has experienced mixed results in his first experience as a Champions League manager, having seen his Bayern side record four draws and three defeats in their seven league phase matches.

Bayern went from the joy of a resounding 9-2 victory against Dinamo Zagreb to the despair of back-to-back defeats against Aston Villa and Barcelona, before they found some consistency with a run of three successive European wins over Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk.

As a result of those victories, the Bavarians travelled to Rotterdam for last week's meeting with Feyenoord in 10th position, only to leave the Netherlands in 15th spot after suffering a heavy 3-0 defeat following a Santiago Gimenez brace and a late Ayase Ueda strike.

While Bayern are still just a point adrift of eighth position, there are now six teams between themselves and an automatic last-16 spot, meaning they will need a number of results to go their way if they are to sneak into the top eight.

Bayern's main focus will be on doing their part by claiming all three points against the Slovakian champions, and they will head into the contest in a positive mood after they extended their lead at the top of the Bundesliga table to six points with a 2-1 away win over Freiburg, courtesy of a Harry Kane opener and a Kim Min-jae effort.

After enjoying success on the road at the weekend, Kompany's charges will now return to the familiar surroundings of the Allianz Arena, where they have won 11 of their 13 competitive matches this season, including victories in all three European home games.

While Bayern are guaranteed to play some form of knockout football, Slovan know that their Champions League journey will come to an end when the referee blows the full-time whistle on Wednesday, having lost each of their seven games in the league phase.

Among those defeats were losses to Manchester City, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid, with Slovan struggling to compete with the elite teams in UEFA's most prestigious club competition.

The Slovakian champions may be fearing their upcoming meeting with Bayern after losing to another Bundesliga side on matchday seven, Idjessi Metsoko's 85th-minute effort proving to be fruitless in a 3-1 home defeat against Stuttgart.

As a result of those three Stuttgart goals, Vladimir Weiss's side now have the worst defensive record in the league phase with 24 goals conceded in seven matches, highlighting one of the key reasons why they are one of two teams yet to pick up a point in this season's main draw.

With their domestic league still on a winter break, Slovan had have a full week to prepare for Wednesday's daunting trip to Munich, with the visitors looking to claim their first win in Germany in major European competition after failing to do so in their previous three visits.

They lost 3-0 in the UEFA Cup to Borussia Dortmund and Kaiserslautern in 1994 and 1995 respectively, before they played out a 2-2 draw with Stuttgart in a 2010-11 Europa League qualifier in their most recent competitive game in Germany.

Bayern Munich possible starting lineup:

Neuer; Laimer, Kim, Dier, Guerreiro; Kimmich, Pavlovic; Olise, Musiala, Coman; Kane

Slovan Bratislava possible starting lineup:

Takac; Kashia, Wimmer, Voet; Blackman, Bajric, Savvidis, Zuberu; Mak, Marcelli, Strelec