Augsburg vs Darmstadt Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Haydn Cunningham Oct 12, 2015 @ 02:14 pm

Augsburg haven’t hit the standard they set last season where they finished in 5^th position missing out on the Champions League by just 1 place. They subsequently qualified for Europe’s secondary competition, the Europa League but have struggled heavily this season in Europe as well as domestically. After 8 league games they have just 5 points to show for themselves and are in real danger of a relegation fight unless they can start replicating last season’s performances. They showed some battling qualities in their 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen in their last fixture which ended a run of 3 straight defeats.

Darmstadt will be content with their start in the Bundesliga currently sitting in 10^th position. Away draws against Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 have been backed up with home victories against Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen. Dirk Schuster is in his 4^th season at Darmstadt and they’ve done remarkable since the former German international took over in 2012. He managed to guide them to safety and prevent them from dropping into Germany’s 4^th tier before sealing a place in the 2.Bundesliga the following season against all the odds. Back-to-back promotion then followed as they finished second in the 2.Bundesliga to secure promotion to the prestigious Bundesliga.

The departure of Abdul Rahman Baba to Chelsea for £14million in the summer was a big loss as the left back was the star player at Augsburg and despite replacing the Ghanaian with Philipp Max and Konstantinos Staylidis, neither of the 2 recruits have provided the quality Baba did countless times last season. The WWK Arena was a feared place to travel to last season in the city of Augsburg as the home fans witnessed just 4 defeats in the league. It is completely contrast to this season where they’ve lost 3 of their opening 4 Bundesliga games at the WWK Arena.

Augsburg and Darmstadt have met just 6 times in history and never clashed in the Bundesliga. Augsburg possesses a very strong record against their opponents on Saturday having won 5 and drawn 1 and conceded just 2 goals in the process. They haven’t met since 2006 and both sides circumstances have changed dramatically for the better. Out of the Darmstadt 8 league games this season, 9  players have started each game which increases the stability amongst the squad and has been a huge contributor to their success this season. Neither side has any fresh injury concerns to contend with as Tobias Werner is Augsburg’s biggest loss.

Augsburg

Stats: W-1 L-5 D-2

Recent Form - DLLLW

Darmstadt

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-4

Recent Form - LDWLW

Head-to-head record:

Possible Line-ups

Augsburg (4-3-1-2) – Hitz, Verhaegh, Klavan, Callsen-Bracker, Stafylidis, Halil Altintop, Baier, Esswein, Ja-Cheol Koo, Kohr, Matavz.

Darmstadt (4-3-3) – Mathenia, Garics, Sulu, Caldirola, Diaz, Heller, Niemeyer, Gondorf, Rausch, Sailer, Wagner.

Injury List/Suspended Players

Augsburg – Werner (inj), Opare (inj)
Darmstadt – Kazimi (inj), Wembacher (inj), Volk (inj).

League Positions