Freiburg take on Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga on Saturday, with the hosts looking to move back into the top half of the table after suffering back-to-back defeats.

Schalke, meanwhile, won only their second league game of the season with a 1-0 victory against Augsburg last time out, but could still be relegated at the end of the weekend depending on results elsewhere.

Match preview

Freiburg travelled to relegation contenders Arminia Bielefeld hoping to bounce back after a disappointing defeat at Borussia Monchengladbach last time out, but failed to lay a glove on the strugglers during an insipid 1-0 defeat.

Frank Kramer's side knew that they could move out of the bottom three with a victory, and started the match on the front foot accordingly, with Andreas Voglsammer sending his strike straight into the palms of Florian Muller, before the stopper superbly denied Fabian Klos from a tight angle.

Arminia continued to press, with Ritsu Doan in typically lively form, before finally breaking the deadlock after Masaya Okugawa's effort deflected off Baptiste Santamaria and past a helpless Muller into the back of the net.

Deprived of the suspended Lucas Holer and Ermedin Demirovic in attack, as well as Vincenzo Grifo through COVID-19, Freiburg could not muster any meaningful response, failing to have a shot on target across the 90 minutes.

Christian Streich will be concerned that his side's season may be fizzling out, but with seventh place potentially providing a pathway to the Europa League next season, the 55-year-old must find a way to motivate his players with only a three-point deficit to Union Berlin in that position.

Schalke will be a second tier side next season, of that there is no doubt whatsoever, but in one of their darkest ever seasons, Die Konigsblauen must take any light which comes their way. Their 1-0 win against Augsburg on Sunday certainly provided a little glimmer.

Dimitrios Grammozis had seen a return of only one point from four games since becoming Schalke's fifth head coach of the season last month, but his side started brightly, with Suat Serdar pouncing on a Rafal Gikiewicz error to put the hosts ahead after only four minutes.

Preferring to play in transition, Augsburg are generally better at holding leads than chasing them, with Heiko Herrlich's side sometimes lacking creativity to break sides down.

However, Marco Richter should have equalised when slipped in behind by Ruben Vargas, but the forward shot straight at the returning Ralf Fahrmann.

The 23-year-old was guilty of a much bigger miss after the break, somehow blazing over after sliding onto Raphael Framberger's excellent cross, with the forward more unfortunate to see his acrobatic overhead-kick denied by Fahrmann as Schalke held on for only their second league win of the season.

Depending on results elsewhere, they may need their third against Freiburg in order to avoid having their first relegation since 1988 confirmed by the end of the weekend.

Team News

Freiburg will continue to be without their key midfielder Nicolas Hofler, who missed the defeat to Arminia due to personal reasons.

Grifo may miss out again, too, having tested positive for COVID-19 while on international duty with Italy last month.

Holer and Demirovic will both return, though, having served their one-match suspensions against Arminia.

Streich will likely pair both in tandem in attack, with Yannik Keitel and Jeong Woo-yeong dropping to the bench and Roland Sallai moving into his preferred wide role.

Schalke, meanwhile, continue to have a string of absentees, with Benito Ramen and Nabil Bentaleb both likely to be injured until May with back and groin issues respectively.

Mark Uth, Levent Mercan, Hamza Mendyl, Nassim Boujellab, Matija Nastasic, Steven Skrzybski and Kilian Ludewig will all be hoping to return to first-team action at some point this month, but are unlikely to feature against Freiburg.

Shkodran Mustafi surprisingly came off the bench to help Grammozis's side get across the line against Augsburg, despite indications that the former Arsenal defender would not play for the club again having been banished from the squad which travelled to Bayer Leverkusen for disciplinary reasons.

William also returned to the squad despite facing identical punishment, so both players should be involved again.

Freiburg possible starting lineup:
Muller; Lienhart, Schlotterbeck, Gulde; Schmid, Santamaria, Haberer, Gunter; Sallai, Demirovic, Holer

Schalke 04 possible starting lineup:
Fahrmann; Becker, Stambouli, Thiaw; Aydin, Serdar, Mascarell, Bozdogan, Oczipka; Huntelaar, Harit

We say: Freiburg 1-0 Schalke 04

With Holer and Demirovic back in tandem in attack, we expect Freiburg to edge a tight encounter.

Schalke will take confidence from their second win of the season last weekend, but it is tough to envisage Freiburg falling to a third successive defeat under Streich.

amp_article__443209 : Collect and Make Data not in DataBase  : 

last updated article - 2024-06-07 08:30:57: 

html db last update  - 2024-06-07 08:30:57 : 


ex  - 7200 : read : write cache and make html