Next Saturday, 13th of December 2014, an unbelievably inconsistent Borussia Dortmund will travel to Berlin to measure forces with Hertha at the Olympic Stadium for round 15 of the Bundesliga, on a match that both sides desperately need to win in order to escape from the pits of the relegation zone.

After a long walk in the desert, Borussia Dortmund finally managed to return to wins last weekend when they entertained the always complicated Hoffenheim at the Westfalenstadion. Although they didn’t produce a remarkable performance, an early goal from the skillful German midfielder Ilkay Gundogan was enough to defeat the visitors, but BVB had to dig deep in order to grant the three points.

Dortmund are currently on the 14th place of the table with only 14 miserable points from the same respective number of matches and they are dangerously close to the relegation line. Their upcoming opponents are in the exact same situation as the former European champions and such fact will certainly increase the difficulty level of next Saturday’s clash.

Just when everyone was expecting Dortmund to maintain their winning streak after granting the three points against Hoffenheim last weekend, Jürgen Klopp’s boys failed to overcome Anderlecht at home on their last group stage UEFA Champions League match last Tuesday. Dortmund remain fairly inconsistent and their defence line is a total chaos with no one really understanding their task or function.

For the difficult clash against Hertha, Klopp will still not able to count on the German star Marcos Reus, who remains sidelined due to a long term injury. The Greek defender, Sokratis, is also in doubt for next Saturday’s important match.

As for Hertha, the team from the German capital city is also not going through a very positive period, as they only managed to win one of their last five matches. Last weekend, Hertha didn’t manage to overcome Borussia Moenchengladbach and ended up by losing the match by 3-2. Die Alte Dame had a good display but in the end weren’t good enough to win the match, as had happened two weeks ago when they met Bayern Munich at Olympic Stadium.

Given Dortmund’s current moment, it is hard to name any favourites for the upcoming clash and if we have in mind both sides’ recent performances, it seems very likely that the match will end up in a draw.

Hertha Berlin

Stats: W-1 L-4 D-0

Recent Form - LLWLL

Borussia Dortmund

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - DWLLD

Possible Line-ups

Hertha (4-2-3-1) - Kraft - Pekarik - Hegeler - Brooks - van den Bergh - Hosogai - Skjelbred - Beerens - Ben Hatira - Schulz - Schieber

Borussia Dortmund (4-2-3-1) - Langerak - Piszczek - Hummels - Subotic - Schmelzer - Kehl - Gundogan - Mkhitaryan - Kagawa- Aubameyang - Ramos

Prediction

Hertha 1 Borussia Dortmund 1