Borussia M’gladbach vs Werder Bremen preview

February 4, 2016
By: Nemanja Lazarevic

Gladbach vs LeverkusenDesperate to recover from back to back defeats in Bundesliga and revive their top 4 bid, Borussia M’gladbach play host to basement club Werder Bremen, who occupy the relegation play-off berth at the moment.

Die Fohlen have done really well to establish themselves as one of Germany’s top clubs over the last few years, which is an amazing transition considered they were on the verge of dropping to the second division not so long ago.

Long-serving coach Lucien Favre has since left the club, but his replacement Andre Schubert hasn’t done too bad either.

It would appear as though the winter break did not came at the perfect time for die Fohlen, who have suffered defeats to Borussia Dortmund and Mainz at the start of the new year.

As a result, they are now two points behind Champions League positions, but the win over Werder would certainly improve their hopes of achieving a top 4 finish.

Borussia M’gladbach have been made 1.80 (4/5) favourites to claim maximum points, which is hardly surprising given that they have five wins in last seven Bundesliga meetings with Werder on home soil (D1 L1).

The hosts still have a number of important players on the sidelines, with Granit Xhaka, Patrick Herrmann, Andre Hahn, Alvaro Dominguez, Nico Schulz and Tony Jantschke all unavailable.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Sommer – Korb, Christensen, Hinteregger, Wendt – Dahoud, Nordtveit – Traore, Stindl, Johnson – Raffael.

Unlike their next opponents, Werder Bremen have experienced all sorts of problems of late and they face a difficult fight to avoid relegation this season.

The Weserstadion outfit have been utterly disappointing in the first part of the campaign, taking mere 15 points from 17 league fixtures, but they have shown a great deal of improvement after the winter break.

Werder recorded an impressive 3-1 triumph over Schalke at Veltins Arena in the opening fixture in 2016 before they played out an entertaining 3-3 draw with high flying Hertha.

And having twice come back from a two-goal deficit to earn one point, Viktor Skripnik’s charges will have something to build on when they take on Borussia M’gladbach.

January recruit Laszlo Kleinheisler is expected to start, but Santiago Garcia is banned and Raphael Wolf, Janek Sternberg, Sambou Yatabare, Aron Johannsson and Philipp Bargfrede are all out injured.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Wiedwald – Gebre Selassie, Vestergaard, Djilobodji, U. Garcia – Fritz, Junuzovic – Kleinheisler, Pizarro, Grillitsch – Ujah.

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