Matchday 29 of Germany’s new look Bundesliga brings us an interesting battle, as struggling Schalke host relegation candidates Werder Bremen. The restart hasn’t been kind to Schalke, who have let European football slip out of their reach, while Bremen’s mixed results haven’t been enough to climb out of the danger zone.
Schalke go into this tie sitting in 9th place, having lost 2-1 to low lying Fortuna Düsseldorf. Werder Bremen managed to see out an impressive, but underwhelming 0-0 draw at home to top 4 side Borussia Mönchengladbach. Read on to find out our betting tips for this one.
Schalke’s slump continuesSince the Bundesliga’s resumption earlier this month, Schalke have picked up where they left off, which isn’t a good thing. After a decent start to the season under David Wagner, the Royal Blues saw a series of bad results before the season was temporarily halted. The 9 week break doesn’t seem to have done Schalke any good, as they’ve lost all 3 of their games so far, having conceded 9 and scored just 1 in the process. Their hattrick of defeats started with a derby loss to Dortmund, with losses to mid table Augsburg and lowly Düsseldorf completing the unwanted trifecta.
Bremen still fighting for survivalWhile their hosts have completed a hattrick of defeats since the restart, Werder Bremen have managed an imperfect hattrick of sorts, having 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss since the Bundesliga’s return. Bremen got off on the wrong foot earlier this month, falling to a 4-1 home defeat at the hands of Bayer Leverkusen. Since then they seem to have sorted out their defence, and have kept 2 clean sheets, as they followed up an impressive 1-0 away win against Freiburg with a 0-0 shutout against Mönchengladbach. However, with just 29 goals, Bremen are the league’s lowest scorers this season.
Schalke won the reverse fixture back in November, as they edged out Bremen 2-1 at the Weser Stadium. The Schalke of late 2019 was a different side to the one we’ve seen so far in 2020, as their first half of the season was characterised by new manager David Wagner creating an organised unit that was hard to break down. Bremen, on the other hand, look to have improved since the restart, though still sit 2nd bottom. In recent seasons, Werder have enjoyed this fixture, having triumphed over the Royal Blues 4 times on the spin until November’s narrow defeat.
We’ve created our betting tip for this match based on past meetings between these two sides and their form since the post lockdown restart. Both sides are struggling for goals, while Schalke have recently had a terrible time keeping them out, but we’re not expecting a lot of goals in this game.
The 8 places that separate these teams in the table, don’t represent their current shared lack of goal scoring quality, which is why we’re predicting a low scoring game.
Schalke have scored just 5 more goals than their relegation battling visitors so far this season, but what’s more telling is that Bremen’s goal tally of 2 goals in 3 games is double that of their hosts. With Schalke’s recent defensive record, having conceded a whopping 9 in their last 3, Bremen should be confident of finding the net at some point on Saturday. That said we could see Schalke getting on the scoresheet and if there were fans in the stadium, it seems unlikely their home crowd would accept a 4th consecutive defeat.
With Bremen looking to climb out of the bottom 3 and Schalke playing for pride, having slumped out of top 6 contention since the restart, both sides have sufficient motivation going into this match, but lack the fire power. That’s why our betting tip for this week is under 1.5 goals to be scored at odds of 3.75 with SkyBet
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