It may be good for both Hamburg and Schalke to return into action shortly after their weekend’s failures, as this match will give them a chance to return to winning ways and restore some of the lost confidence.

Even if they did well to recover from the disappointing start to the season, HSV have yet to properly hit the ground running this term.

The team have been pretty inconsistent of late, as witnessed by the fact they have yet to record back to back victories this season.

Weekend’s defeat to struggling Fortuna Dusseldorf not only saw them slip to the bottom half of the standings, but also left them without star player Rafael van der Vaart, who is set to miss at least three weeks with a hamstring injury.

With Heung-Min Son also out of the Schalke clash, it is little wonder home win pays 4.50 (7/2) at BetVictor.

Marcel Jansen is, however, expected to return to the side, but Petr Jiracek, Gojko Kacar and Slobodan Rajkovic remain sidelined.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Adler – Diekmeier, Mancienne, Westermann, Aogo – Badelj, Rincon – Beister, Arslan, Jansen – Berg.

Schalke 04 have been pretty solid in the early exchanges, considering they had to balance between their Bundesliga and European campaigns.

While doing well to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages, the Miners enjoyed a decent start to their league campaign, even if the recent run of results saw them slip to third in the overall standings.

Having won just one of their last four league fixtures, Schalke desperately need a win in Hamburg, and we see a good value in odds of 1.91 (10/11) offered at BetFred on away win.

After ending his scoring drought with a goal against Eintract, Klaas Jan Huntelaar is 3.75 (11/4) with Ladbrokes to score the first goal at Imtech Arena.

Atsuto Uchida and Christoph Metzelder have returned into action, but Ibrahim Afellay remains injury doubt.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Unnerstall – Uchida, Howedes, Matip, Fuchs – Jones, Neustadter – Farfan, Holtby, Draxler – Huntelaar.