Berlin: Defending champions Bayern Munich sealed their 18th win of the season as they overcame FC Cologne 4-1 at the curtain raiser of the 23rd round of Bundesliga.

The Bundesliga front-runners Friday celebrated the club’s 115th anniversary with a 4-1 win over Cologne extending their winning run to four games, reports Xinhua.

Bayern established a two-goal lead within ten minutes before Cologne’s Anthony Ujah reduced the arrears before the break out of nowhere. However, Bayern recovered after the restart to extend the lead with another two goals.

After beating Hamburg SV 8-0 and newly promoted SC Paderborn 07 6-1 in the last two games, Bayern overran Cologne with two quick goals in the first ten minutes.

The “Bavarians” caught a bright start with just three minutes into the game when Bastian Schweinsteiger headed home a cross by Arjen Robben for the opener.

The spectators at the outsold Allianz Arena didn’t had to wait long for the second goal of the evening as Franck Ribery doubled the lead from outside of the box into the bottom left corner at the 10th minute.

With the two-goal lead behind Bayern retracted meanwhile Cologne were able to recover from the goals. And they did recover, as Cologne’s Ujah reduced the arrears out of the blue when he nodded home a cross by Matthias Lehmann in the dying seconds of the first half.

After the restart, Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer had to make a couple of saves to deny the visitors the equaliser. Especially Ujah tested Neuer with a volley, which forced the German international with a diving save into the bottom right.

However, Bayern destroyed Cologne’s comeback hopes when Robben made use of Ribery’s lob at the far post in the 67th minute. Bayern goalkeeper Neuer was again in the thick of things when he parried Daniel Halfar’s shot on target moments later.

Bayern weren’t done with the scoring as Robert Lewandowski put the result beyond doubt by making it 4-1 in the 75th minute.

With the fourth straight win, Bayern increased their advantage to nine points meanwhile Cologne stayed on the 13th place with 25 points.