New Bayern Munich coach Jupp Heynckes insists his appearance at the Allianz Arena at the weekend was purely coincidental and that he was not there to hold talks about taking over from Jurgen Klinsmann.

Klinsmann was sacked on Monday after Saturday's 1-0 home defeat to Schalke convinced club bosses to make a change with five games of the season remaining.

Heynckes, who was among the crowd as a guest of general manager Uli Hoeness, was installed as the club's caretaker coach until the end of the campaign, but he denies having discussed the job with his host at the weekend.

"My wife and I were invited about six weeks ago by the Hoeness family to spend the weekend with them in Munich," he said.

"It was a beautiful weekend, up until Bayern's game against Schalke. Then the atmosphere became subdued.

"We flew home while the men sat down in Munich and decided to part company with Jurgen Klinsmann and look for an alternative.

"Just after landing in Dusseldorf, my telephone started to ring."

On the other end was Hoeness, asking him to return to Munich immediately and help salvage something from the season.

"I considered it and asked my wife, who told me to go ahead and do it," he explained in the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"I am feeling fine again after a few operations, so I called (Bayern director) Karl Hopfner on Monday morning and agreed to take over.

"I know Bayern and they know me, so we did not even need to discuss wages and the like."

However, Heynckes' last involvement with the Bavarian club dates back 18 years and, not least due to the changes made by his predecessor Klinsmann over the last 10 months, arriving at the club's training facilities today will still feel strange.

He will now set about making further changes to get the team ready to win their last five games of the season and remain in the hunt for the title.

"We don't have long before the game against Monchengladbach at the weekend and the priority will be to give the players back their love for football," he said.

"I think Jurgen Klinsmann worked really hard with the people and he developed many innovative ideas, but you could see on Saturday that the team has a mental block.

"Removing this block will be the first task. The second will be to try to explain to the players my footballing know-how."

There is not much time for either, but Heynckes is convinced a lot can change in just five matches.

Bayern trail league leaders Wolfsburg by three points going into the season's run-in and they cannot afford to drop any more points if they are to successfully defend their title.

"I am a realistic person and if the players did not have so much potential, then it would certainly be hard to change things. But because there is so much potential in them, you can make changes in the short term," he explained.

Heynckes' first game on the Bayern bench is against his hometown club Borussia Monchengladbach on Saturday.