Hamburg aim to continue their climb in their Bunesliga standings following the impressive victory at Schalke and they are hoping another victory would see them return to contention for the Champions League places. Eintracht, on the other hand, enter the game in low spirits after losing at home to Hannover and the visitors are likely to have problems in this match as well.

HSV back to their best

There is absolutely no doubt Hamburg should have done much better in the first part of the season as Armin Veh largely struggled to prove their potential, but seeing that their rivals were also pretty disappointing, HSV still have the chance to save this season. After finishing the first part of the season with a win at Borussia M’Gladbach, Armin Veh’s continued the good run by beating Schalke at Veltins Arena, with the players now brimming with confidence before the Eintracht game. The hosts now sit just six points behind the Champions League places and they have a great chance to further close that gap and return to the top 3 race, so it looks highly unlikely they will miss the opportunity to beat out-of-form Eintracht.

With Joris Mathijsen still out with injury, Gojko Kacar will again partner Heiko Westermann in the heart of defence, but David Jarolim misses out through suspension. The good news is that Mladen Petric and Collin Benjamin have resumed full training, meaning they could take some part in this match. Jansen, Guerrero, Son, Dieckmeier, Castelen and Stepanek remain sidelined.

Eintracht slowly losing ground

Eintracht recovered well from the dismal start to the season that saw them lose four of the first five league games, with Michael Skibbe’s team going pretty strong until late November, when they again started struggling. The winter break seems to have done the Eagles a lot of harm as they suffered a disappointing 3:0 defeat at home to Hannover last weekend and they now face another uphill task at Imtech Arena. The players are completely out of confidence after losing five of their last seven games, and that is going to be a major issue when pitted against very good Hamburg side. Coach Michael Skibbe has rejected a new contract offer from the club, which only makes difficult situation worse, so we really don’t see how Eintracht are going to survive this away game.

The visitors are without suspended Pirmin Schwegler, while Tzavellas, Chris, Bajramovic, Russ and Vasoski are out injured.

Verdict

Hamburg have shown a lot of improvement lately with the win at Schalke proving Armin Veh has big enough squad to cope with the absentees, which cannot be said of Eintracht, as the Frankfurt outfit is largely struggling without several key players. All things considered, Hamburg should be able to win this game.

Our prediction: Home win

Odds: 1.67 (2/3)

Bookmaker: Paddy Power