The second evening of mid-week Bundesliga matches features the league leaders Bayern Munich, who host bottom of the table Koln at the Allianz Arena.
With the clubs below them in the league unable to put together a consistent run of form in recent weeks, Bayern Munich have been able to open a gap at the top of the Bundesliga and as things stand, look well set to retain their title this season.
Their opponents on Wednesday night, Koln, have struggled badly and are in desperate need of points as they aim to get off the bottom of the table and avoid relegation this season. However, they are very much up against it this week.
Bayern come into this match having won each of their last three games in all competitions. There have been wins over Hannover and Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga plus a good 3-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
Trends show Bayern Munich have won seven of their last eight Bundesliga games with the only defeat coming at Borussia Monchengladbach. Scoring goals has not been a problem and the champions have netted at least once in each of their last twelve Bundesliga games this season.
Bayern Munich are unbeaten in their last twenty-nine home Bundesliga games and have won twenty-three of those games, drawing six.
Koln travel to Munich having suffered an incredible 4-3 defeat at home to Freiburg on the weekend in very wintery conditions at the Rhein Energie Stadion. Despite having been 3-0 up after just 30 minutes of the match, Koln managed to concede 4 goals and lose the game 4-3 in extraordinary fashion.
This result and performance goes some way to summing up this season for Koln and they currently sit bottom of the Bundesliga with just 3 points to their name having played 15 matches. They are yet to win a match and that makes the result at the weekend even more galling.
A look at Koln’s away form shows they have won only one of their last nineteen away games in the Bundesliga and that victory came last season. Trends show they have conceded an average of 2 goals per games in away Bundesliga matches this season and have failed to score in five of their eight games on the road.
Looking ahead to the team news and Bayern Munich are still without Manuel Neuer, Arjen Robben and Thiago who are injured. Mats Hummels was ill at the weekend and may not feature again in this game, meaning Jerome Boateng and Niklas Sule will start in central defence.
Koln have massive injury problems and are set to be without at least ten players for this game. Jonas Hector, Marco Hoger, Dominic Maroh, Claudio Pizzaro, Marcel Risse and Leonardo Bittencourt are among the players on the treatment table.
It’s impossible to see anything other than a home win in this match. The only question is by how many goals can Bayern Munich win this game and they could easily put 5 past the Koln defence.