Augsburg take on Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich on Wednesday evening, with the hosts looking to spring an upset after three defeats in their last four games.
For Bayern, this is the first of five consecutive games against sides currently in the bottom half, so there is a clear opportunity to extend their gap at the top of the table.
Match preview
© Reuters
After an excellent start to the season, Augsburg have fallen off a little in recent weeks, with Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Werder Bremen a particularly low point of their campaign so far.
Heiko Herrlich's side failed to muster a single shot on target across the entire 90 minutes, which will be a huge concern to the 49-year-old given that Bremen still lie a point and place behind them in the table.
However, Augsburg did look like they were going to earn a point until the latter stages, when Theodor Gebre Selassie and Felix Agu scored two quickfire goals from almost out of nowhere in the 84th and 87th minutes respectively.
Herrlich's side will require a much better offensive performance to stand a chance against Bayern, though, but can take belief from the 2-2 draw they earned against the Bavarians last season.
© Reuters
Bayern, meanwhile, bounced back from back-to-back defeats against Borussia Monchengladbach and Holstein Kiel with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Freiburg on Sunday.
Their opponents had won five consecutive Bundesliga matches for the first time in their history ahead of travelling to Munich, so Hansi Flick will have been pleased that his side managed to get over the line.
Robert Lewandowski had threatened to inspire a more convincing backlash after putting the Bavarians ahead after only seven minutes, but to their credit Freiburg hung in the game, with Nils Petersen equalising just after the hour mark.
Despite Thomas Muller firing Bayern back ahead, Petersen had a glorious chance in injury time to salvage a point, which on the balance of play Freiburg probably deserved, but the striker hit the bar.
Flick will be hoping for a more routine victory against an Augsburg side who perhaps lack the pace in transition to threaten Bayern as frequently as many sides have done of late.
Augsburg Bundesliga form: DWLWLL
Augsburg form (all competitions): WLLWLL
Bayern Munich Bundesliga form: DWWWLW
Bayern Munich form (all competitions): WWWLLW
Team News
© Reuters
Augsburg will have Marco Richter available once again after the forward served a one-match ban in the defeat at Bremen following his dismissal against Stuttgart.
Iago, Raphael Framberger, Fredrik Jensen and Jan Moravek are all ruled out through injury.
Bayern, meanwhile, will be sweating over the fitness of Serge Gnabry after the winger was withdrawn in the first half of their victory over Freiburg.
Flick is unlikely to risk Gnabry, especially with Sane seemingly finally hitting top form in a Bayern shirt, while Joshua Kimmich and Alphonso Davies could also receive rests having sustained serious injuries earlier in the campaign.
Youngsters Tanguy Nianzou remains out of action with injury.
Augsburg possible starting lineup:
Gikiewicz; Oxford, Gouweleeuw, Uduokhai; Caligiuri, Khedira, Gruezo, Pedersen; Richter, Finnbogason, Vargas
Bayern Munich possible starting lineup:
Neuer; Pavard, Boateng, Alaba, Hernandez; Tolisso, Goretzka; Sane, Muller, Coman; Lewandowski
We say: Augsburg 0-3 Bayern Munich
Bayern have not kept a clean sheet in the Bundesliga since thrashing Eintracht Frankfurt 4-0 in late October, but we can envisage that run coming to an end in this match.
Augsburg are likely to be heavily reliant on Ruben Vargas's pace and trickery on the break, so if the winger does not produce a great performance, it is hard to see them scoring even with Bayern's defensive vulnerabilities of late.
Top betting tip
Brett Curtis
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 Bayern Munich win with a probability of 86.3%. A draw had a probability of 9.1% and a win for Augsburg had a probability of 4.56%.
The most likely scoreline for a Bayern Munich win was 0-3 with a probability of 10.9%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (9.84%) and 0-4 (9.07%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (4.18%), while for an Augsburg win it was 2-1 (1.47%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 5.9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Bayern Munich would win this match.
