Bayer Leverkusen take on Freiburg in the Bundesliga on Sunday, with the two sides six points apart in the table.
Leverkusen will be looking to bounce back after crashing out of the Europa League on Thursday night, with their hopes of securing a Champions League spot now resting firmly on finishing in the top four.
Match preview
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After a brilliant start to the season which saw them lead the Bundesliga for a while, Leverkusen have significantly dipped since the turn of the year, dropping to fifth in the table and five points outside of the Champions League qualification positions.
Peter Bosz's side were slightly fortunate to earn a point at Augsburg in a 1-1 draw last weekend, trailing for the majority of the match after deputy goalkeeper Niklas Lomb's horrendous error in the fifth minute allowed Florian Niederlechner to open the scoring by tapping into an empty net.
The 30-year-old proved a thorn in Leverkusen's side all afternoon, with Augsburg preying on their opponents' defensive nervousness by frequently going long to the striker, who narrowly blazed over the top before the break. Leverkusen did improve throughout the second half, but looked set to fall short before substitute Demarai Gray's superb cross from the right found Edmond Tapsoba to snatch a point with the last kick of the game.
Having already crashed out of the DFP-Pokal, Bosz will now have to focus solely on the league for the rest of the season after a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Young Boys on Thursday in the Europa League. Leverkusen trailed 4-3 from the first leg but would have been confident of overturning the tie on home turf, but could not find the breakthrough as Theoson Siebatcheu and Christian Fassnacht's second-half strikes condemned the Germans to a premature exit from the competition.
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Having benefitted from a week's rest, Freiburg may well sense an opportunity to bounce back from last weekend's 1-0 defeat to Union Berlin by upsetting the odds in Leverkusen.
There is little doubt, though, that they will have to play much better than they did during that defeat if they are to do so. Christian Streich's side were second best throughout, struggling to break down Union Berlin's disciplined defensive unit.
After a quiet first half which saw Robert Andrich come closest to scoring with a fierce strike from distance, the visitors took a deserved lead when Marcus Ingvartsen's lovely cross found Grischa Promel to stoop home at the back post. Urs Fischer's side had chances to double their tally, with Joel Pohjanpalo particularly profligate, but they comfortably held on to leapfrog Freiburg in the table.
Streich and his players should not be too downhearted, though, having put together a very decent run of results over the past few months. They tend to be more comfortable soaking up possession and playing in transition in any case, which should suit them perfectly against Leverkusen.
Bayer Leverkusen Bundesliga form: WLLWDD
Bayer Leverkusen form (all competitions): LWDLDL
Freiburg Bundesliga form: DWLWDL
Team News
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Leverkusen will be without Moussa Diaby after the winger picked up his fifth yellow card of the season against Freiburg, so former Leicester City winger Gray may be handed his first start for the club after joining in January.
Lars Bender, Lukas Hradecky, Julian Baumgartlinger, Santiago Arias and Paulinho are all ruled out through injury.
Freiburg, meanwhile, will travel to Leverkusen without Mark Flekken and Kwon Chang-hoon due to injury, but otherwise Streich has a clean bill of health to choose from.
After blanking in their last two matches, the 55-year-old will be scratching his head as to the best way of fixing the attack. Ermedin Demirovic and Roland Sallai could return to the starting XI to increase the visitors' threat on the break.
Bayer Leverkusen possible starting lineup:
Lomb; Fosu-Mensah, Bender, Tapsoba, Wendell; Wirtz, Aranguiz, Demirbay; Bailey, Schick, Gray
Freiburg possible starting lineup:
Muller; Schmid, Lienhart, Gulde, Gunter; Hofler, Santamaria; Sallai, Grifo; Holer, Demirovic
We say: Bayer Leverkusen 1-1 Freiburg
We can envisage Freiburg gaining a positive result on Sunday, with Leverkusen having had much less rest than their opponents and consistently struggling to defend counter-attacks.
Freiburg tend to become more dangerous the less they have of the ball, so Leverkusen's methodical possession game should leave plenty of space in behind for them to exploit.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Bayer Leverkusen win with a probability of 62.02%. A draw had a probability of 20.6% and a win for Freiburg had a probability of 17.4%.
The most likely scoreline for a Bayer Leverkusen win was 2-0 with a probability of 10%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.95%) and 1-0 (9.7%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (9.64%), while for a Freiburg win it was 1-2 (4.79%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 4.8% likelihood.
