Pep Guardiola has cited Borussia Dortmund's fall from grace as a warning to Bayern Munich's players after their shock loss last Friday.
Bayern suffered their first defeat of the Bundesliga season as Wolfsburg triumphed 4-1, narrowing the gap on the leaders to eight points.
Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer conceded as many goals against Wolfsburg as he did in first 17 Bundesliga games of the season, with centre-back pairing of Jerome Boateng and Dante exposed several times by Belgium international Kevin De Bruyne.
Speaking at his prematch news conference ahead of their meeting with Schalke on Tuesday, Guardiola took the blame for the defeat.
"We left Boateng and Dante alone with De Bruyne, that was my mistake," he said. "Maybe the players need a bit of fear in their actions after the six-week break, you know."
Regarding Bayern's struggle to contain Wolfsburg's counter-attacks, Guardiola said: "The ball is always faster than the fastest player in the world, and we now conceded four goals in one games, as many as in the previous 17 games. So we played it well 17 times."
The Catalan coach rejected criticism of holding midfielders Bastian Schweinsteiger and Xabi Alonso, who were deemed too slow by parts of the German media, saying that "it's down to all 11 players" to control the opponents' forward play.
Despite Bayern's comfortable cushion at the top of the league, Guardiola warned that they will need to remain focused or otherwise could face a Borussia Dortmund-style collapse, with Jurgen Klopp's 2012 Bundesliga champions currently bottom of the table.
"Bayern Munich have won everything in the past two years. Super. That's true. But this second half of the season will be difficult," he said.
"A defeat is never good. But sometimes you deserve to lose. When you win all the time, nobody understands my words. But when you lose, it's like 'oh.' If we understand that we can also tomorrow, we are in a good way.
"We should not forget: What happened to BVB with coach Jurgen Klopp, whom I rate very highly, and who has a great squad, can also happen to us. All of us here at FC Bayern Munich need to understand it."