Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has confirmed the club are ready to let Luca Toni leave for free in January.

The Italian is surplus to requirements at the Bundesliga club after falling out with coach Louis van Gaal.

"We still don't have a concrete offer, although we are prepared to loan or sell him for no fee," Hoeness told German TV show DFS-Doppelpass.

Toni, who joined Bayern from Fiorentina in 2007, has started just three Bundesliga games this term and his only goal of the campaign has come in the DFB Pokal.

Hoeness added: "If necessary we will not ask for a transfer fee. We want to have peace."

The striker was not in the match-day squad as Bayern claimed a 5-2 win over Hertha Berlin yesterday to make it six wins in a row.

That run suggests the club's early-season crisis is well and truly behind them, and Van Gaal insists the best is yet to come.

Bayern's resurgence has been achieved without Franck Ribery, whom Van Gaal insists can take Bayern onto the next level when he returns from injury in January.

"With Franck Ribery, we can probably do even better," said the Bayern coach.

"And, if we do better than we have done in recent weeks, then we also have good chances of winning a title."

Bayern trail league leaders Bayer Leverkusen by only two points at the midway stage of the season while they look forward to a tie with Fiorentina in the last 16 of the Champions League, with Van Gaal's self-defined "holistic process" now beginning to yield results.

"I am very satisfied and happy, also about the way we won," added the Dutchman.

"That is how we at Bayern Munich always want to play and we can now celebrate a relaxed Christmas."

Bayern's director of sport Christian Nerlinger paid tribute to Van Gaal for sticking to his guns while under "enormous pressure from outside".

A 1-0 win over Maccabi Haifa in the Champions League last month proved to be the turning point as defeat in that game could well have cost him his job.

Instead, that result kept the club's hopes of reaching the second round of the Champions League alive and a subsequent 4-1 win at Juventus and four Bundesliga victories on the bounce have confirmed Van Gaal is the right man for the job after all.

"There was enormous pressure from outside but Louis Van Gaal was as solid as a rock," said Nerlinger.

"He stuck to his principles during a difficult situation and that has paid off. Now you can see things working."