Given the week Aberdeen are enduring, news that Bayern Munich will be without Willy Sagnol, Mark van Bommel, Daniel van Buyten and Franck Ribery when they touch down in Scotland later this morning will no doubt be greeted with much relief in the Granite City.

The fact, however, that Sagnol, the experienced French internationalist, has not travelled simply as a precautionary measure ahead of Bayern's Bundesliga bout with Hannover 96 this weekend perhaps illustrates how confident the Germans are of achieving a positive result, regardless of playing personnel, in the first leg of their last-32 UEFA Cup tie.

Bayern, known as FC Hollywood in Germany, have never been a club short on self-belief. Perennial success has been achieved with the sort of headstrong, arrogant players who would probably refuse to give up their seat on the bus to a pregnant woman and think nothing of heading straight to the front of a long queue.

Oliver Kahn, Lothar Matthaus and Mario Basler may not be men you would turn to for a shoulder to cry on at times of emotional turmoil but their win-at-all-costs mentality has been pivotal in Bayern claiming an array of silverware over the years.

It was to their eternal embarrassment, therefore - and a source of great schadenfreude to the rest of Germany - that Bayern concluded last season's Bundesliga campaign in fourth place, missing out on a spot in the Champions League as a result.

Determined to avoid a repeat, Ottmar Hitzfeld, restored to the manager's chair in place of the deposed Felix Magath, spent heavily in the summer, landing Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose and the afore-mentioned Ribery among others. That influx of fresh talent has had the desired effect - Bayern lead the league by three points from Werder Bremen - but there have been hiccups along the way.

Hitzfeld's decision to step down at the end of this season, to be replaced by Jurgen Klinsmann, has added an unhelpful air of uncertainty, while injuries to key players, including Ribery, who is currently absent with a thigh problem, have also proven disruptive. Aberdeen will not exactly be encountering a team in crisis but certainly there are chinks in the Bayern armour that could be exploited.

"They certainly expected things to have gone far smoother this season," revealed Felix Seidel, a reporter for the Bild newspaper. "They made a great start to the league, scored a lot of goals and won most matches convincingly. Then they hit a bit of a rocky patch and weren't even beating so-called easy opposition at home. Teams like MSV Duisburg and Eintracht Frankfurt were coming to the Allianz Arena and Bayern were unable to break them down. They had a good winter break but the problems are still there, most notably with Franck Ribery picking up an injury. Without him they badly lack creativity or the ability to conjure something from nothing. They certainly won't come to Aberdeen and win 5-0, for example. I still think they will finish the season as German champions but it won't be as clear-cut as everyone imagined in the summer."

The Bayern squad keep making the right noises about looking to win the UEFA Cup this season, although the suspicion lingers that they are still pining for Europe's premier stage. Seidel added: "All the players keep telling us how important it is for the club to win the UEFA Cup but you feel they would all rather they were in the Champions League this season."

In many ways, they have found playing in front of smaller European audiences, where the crowds are closer to 20,000 than the 70,000 they are used to, quite difficult, as the fans can create quite a hostile atmosphere. They also seem to have problems getting motivated for matches against lesser opposition, as we saw in the UEFA Cup group games against Bolton, Braga and Red Star Belgrade, especially when they go into all of these matches as favourites, which isn't always the case in the Champions League."

One interested spectator who will tune into tomorrow night's game from his home in Bavaria is Christian Nerlinger. The former Bayern Munich midfielder and erstwhile football agent, now studying for a degree in International Economics, believes his former club will emerge victorious but knows from his time as a Rangers player that trips to Pittodrie are often fraught with danger.

He told the Herald: "I know from my own experiences that the Scottish mentality is to believe everything is possible. Aberdeen will make it very difficult for Bayern and will show great fighting spirit, especially at home. But, for me, Bayern are a world-class side. I live in Munich now and follow their progress closely as they are a club close to my heart.

"They are without Ribery at the moment and he is usually one of their most creative outlets. But other players like Klose, Toni, Kahn, Demichelis and Lahm are all very strong and, if I had to predict, I would say they will be too strong for Aberdeen. When players like Bastian Schweinsteiger, who did so well for Germany in the World Cup, can only get a seat on the bench then that shows how many good players they have available to them. I can see them winning both the UEFA Cup and the Bundesliga this year."