With Vincent Kompany suspended, Bayern Munich assistant manager Aaron Danks will take charge for the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain. Danks, known for his set-piece expertise, has a mixed coaching record, including a 4-0 win and a 0-4 defeat during his interim stint at Aston Villa in 2022. Bayern’s defensive struggles on set-pieces, accounting for 38% of their conceded goals this season, add pressure to Danks’ temporary role.
With Vincent Kompany suspended, Aaron Danks will take charge on the touchline against Paris Saint-Germain . The assistant manager at FC Bayern typically oversees set-pieces. Aaron Danks has been a head coach twice in his career.
Judging his suitability for the role is tricky: one 4–0 win and one 0–4 defeat. Both results came in October 2022 at Aston Villa. After Steven Gerrard’s sacking, his former assistant, Danks, stepped in as interim head coach. His first game was a resounding 4-0 win over Brentford FC.
“He was impressive,” Villa winger Leon Bailey said. “He took charge in no time and made it very clear what he wanted from us. ” That high was short-lived, however, as Villa then shipped four goals without reply to Newcastle United. Aston Villa then appointed Unai Emery, who remains in charge to this day.
Danks stayed on Emery’s staff for another month before moving to second-tier Middlesbrough FC as assistant to Michael Carrick . In summer 2024, Danks followed former boss Vincent Kompany from RSC Anderlecht to Bayern Munich.
There he is now poised to take charge for the third time: Kompany was booked in the second leg of the quarter-final against Real Madrid after picking up two yellow cards in the group stage versus Arsenal and PSV Eindhoven, and he will serve a suspension in the first semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain. As his stand-in, Danks has been preferred over fellow assistants Rene Maric , Floribert Ngalula and Daniel Fradley .
Danks’s primary expertise within the coaching team lies in set pieces, and at Bayern his work in this area has shown similar mixed results to his brief Villa stint: productive on offence, leaky on defence—a 4–0 to 0–4 contrast. Defending set-pieces is a glaring weakness for an otherwise near-flawless Munich side. Of the 52 goals they have conceded this season, 20 have come from set-pieces—38% of the total. The problem was especially pronounced in the autumn.
After a 4-1 win over 1. FC Köln at the end of October, Harry Kane complained of “a bit too much confusion” and said: “We weren’t really in the right positions, weren’t clear on the instructions. ” That’s why Danks spoke at half-time: “And he kind of gave us a bit of an English talking. ” In other words, things got heated.
Two subsequent set-piece goals cost Bayern a 2-2 draw with Union Berlin, ending their 16-game winning run. They also fell behind from a corner in the first defeat to Arsenal. Defensive organisation then improved, but the problem resurfaced recently. In the return leg against Real Madrid, Arda Güler scored directly from a free-kick, and FSV Mainz 05 opened the scoring from a corner in Saturday’s wild 4-3 encounter.
At the end of March, World Cup winner Toni Kroos highlighted Munich’s set-piece frailties in his podcast’. When asked about this, Kompany replied: “It’s a fact that we’re not perfect in this area. ” In the same breath, however, he also stressed that his side “is one of the best in Europe when it comes to attacking set-pieces”. In the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich have already scored 13 goals from corners.
The record since detailed data collection began in 2004 stands at 14, set by Borussia Mönchengladbach in the 2023/24 season. Add to that four goals from free kicks and 11 converted penalties, thanks to Kane, and 28 of Bayern’s 113 Bundesliga goals to date have come from set pieces. In his hunt for fresh set-piece routines, Danks borrows ideas from the past and abroad.
“The best coaches sometimes have to be the best thieves. We look around a lot in Europe,” he toldduring his first season in Munich, adding: “We’ve also looked at old free-kicks and corners from Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry. ”Getty Images SportDanks knew from an early age that he wanted to become a coach—and, by extension, a thief. He joined Birmingham City at 15, even dropping out of secondary school to do so.
He began in grassroots football, roaming the city with “a ball bag, bibs and a bus ticket” to lead training sessions at schools and holiday camps. After a spell with local rivals West Bromwich Albion, he joined the FA as a possession coach for the youth national teams. In that role he won the U20 World Cup in 2017 and later guided the U21s, working with talents such as Jude Bellingham, Emile Smith Rowe and Jamal Musiala.
Musiala ultimately chose to represent Germany internationally. After five years with the FA, Kompany—who had spotted Danks during his playing days at Manchester City and called him “one of England’s most talented coaches”—brought him to Anderlecht in 2021. Their collaboration in Belgium lasted only two months, however, before Danks returned to England as assistant manager at Aston Villa, where he later made his first two senior appearances as head coach.
For his third attempt, UEFA rules enforce a strict ban on contact with Kompany. He can still travel to the ground on the team bus but is barred from the tunnel. Instead, Kompany must watch the match from the stands. Communication via headset or phone is banned, and there can be no half-time exchange.
He may enter the dressing room only ten minutes after the final whistle, by which point any in-game tactical chatter—or “English talking”—must have been resolved.
Bayern Munich Aaron Danks Vincent Kompany Paris Saint-Germain Champions League
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