FC Koln entertain Arminia Bielefeld in the Bundesliga on Sunday, with the hosts able to move out of the bottom three ahead of their forthcoming opponents in the table with a victory.
Both sides come into this match off the back of heavy defeats last weekend.
Match preview
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After a hugely significant last-minute winner against struggling Schalke 04, Koln headed to Hoffenheim with plenty of confidence of gaining another positive result against a side in the bottom half.
However, Hoffenheim's position in the league table proved to be a false one in terms of their performance on the day, with Sebastian Hoeness's side running out comfortable 3-0 winners.
Christoph Baumgartner's instinctive close range finish was sandwiched by two Andrej Kramaric penalties either side of half time, with Anthony Modeste squandering a golden opportunity to open his account for the season against his former club from the spot himself.
Markus Gisdol will have dusted his players down, though, before imploring them to beat Arminia Bielefeld and move out of the bottom three as a result.
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Gisdol and his players will hope Arminia's defence are as accommodating as they were throughout Saturday's 5-1 home defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt.
In fairness, Frankfurt are the form side in the Bundesliga at the moment, with few sides being able to cope with attacking quality of the likes of Andre Silva and Luka Jovic in their current form.
The nature of the goals would have been a huge disappointment to Uwe Neuhaus, though, particularly the opener, which is often the most important goal in a football match. An attempted Arminia clearance comically clattered off the back of a nearby teammate, landing perfectly at Silva's feet for him to extend his tally for the season.
Frankfurt never looked back from there, with Silva, Filip Kostic, Jovic and a Joakim Nilsson own goal capping a disastrous afternoon for Arminia despite Sergio Cordova having provided a glimmer of hope before half time. They must play much better in order to avoid dropping back into the bottom three on Sunday.
FC Koln Bundesliga form: DLLDWL
FC Koln form (all competitions): WLLDWL
Arminia Bielefeld Bundesliga form: WLWDWL
Team News
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With goals hard to come by for Koln this season, their fans and Gisdol alike will have been delighted by the signing of forward Emmanuel Dennis from Club Brugge in recent days.
It remains to be seen whether Gisdol throws him in for such a huge match against Arminia, but Rafael Czichos, Sebastian Andersson and Florian Kainz are ruled out due to injury.
Arminia are likely to travel without Andreas Voglsammer and Noel Niemann due to injury.
Manuel Prietl could return to the starting XI, though, after seemingly recovering from a muscular issue.
FC Koln possible starting lineup:
T. Horn; Wolf, Cestic, Bornauw, Mere, J. Horn; Duda, Skhiri, Hector, Drexler; Dennis
Arminia Bielefeld possible starting lineup:
Ortega; Brunner, Nilsson, Pieper, Laursen; Prietl, Kunze, Hartel; Doan, Klos, Cordova
We say: FC Koln 2-1 Arminia Bielefeld
Arminia actually arrive in Cologne in better form than their opponents, but we can envisage the hosts gaining a crucial victory to lift themselves out of the bottom three.
The arrival of Dennis in attack should provide Koln with the quality outlet they have been missing in recent weeks.
Top betting 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 FC Koln win with a probability of 37.73%. A win for Arminia Bielefeld had a probability of 35.03% and a draw had a probability of 27.2%.
The most likely scoreline for a FC Koln win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.73%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.13%) and 2-0 (6.76%). The likeliest Arminia Bielefeld win was 0-1 (10.25%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.91%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 3.4% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that FC Koln would win this match.
