Dortmund vs Schalke Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Haydn Cunningham Nov 02, 2015 @ 05:26 pm

Tuchel was pleased to recall Henrikh Mkhitaryan to the starting line-up after the Armenian international has been missing for the past couple of weeks and the midfielder netted in a 3-1 win over Werder Bremen. Marco Reus hit another brace after his recent one against Augsburg and he’ll be desperate to close the game on his fellow colleague, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the goal scoring department. Dortmund dominated possession and a goal just before the stroke of half time to make it 2-1 made the second half a much easier one where they would increase their lead to a 2 goal advantage and see out the game comfortably. The win took them further ahead of Schalke in 4^th with the lead now 6 points in total and will hope to extend that Sunday when they face Schalke.

Schalke were grateful that 2 of the 3 sides below them dropped points after their disappointing 1-1 draw against newly promoted Ingolstadt. It required a 79^thminute header from Leroy Sane to salvage anything from the game after the hosts were extremely wasteful in front of goal. Only 3 of the 18 shots they had on goal tested the Ingolstadt goalkeeper and the draw now takes their winless run to 4 games. A trip to in-form Dortmund won’t be the opposition they want to end that run but a win against such formidable opposition may well trigger a good period of form to cement their place in the Champions League qualification places. Form generally goes out of the window in the Revierderby and Schalke will want to get back on the right track.

Dortmund have scored 12 goals in their past 2 home games and are just 1 goal shy of averaging 3 goals per game in the Bundesliga this season. Schalke in comparison are the joint lowest goal scorers in the top 6 but both sides have conceded 13 goals in 11 league matches. An interesting fact regarding Marco Reus is that 27 of his 64 goals in Dortmund’s colours have put his side 1-0 up so Schalke will be keen to sound out the in-form German attacker.

Schalke were dealt a blow in the 1-1 draw with Ingolstadt as central defender Benedikt Howedes sustained a broken knuckle and Schalke’s captain will now miss the Revierderby. He had a small operation and is likely to take between 10-14 days to fully recover. It hasn’t helped with the club dealing with a central defensive crisis already with Felipe Santana and Matija Nastasic also out. Tuchel has no injury problems to contend with and is perfectly rotating his squad to keep the sharpness and competitiveness bursting through his squad. 

Borussia Dortmund

Stats: W-8 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WWWWW

Schalke 

Stats: W-6 L-3 D-2

Recent Form - WDLLD

Head-to-head record:

Possible Line-ups

Dortmund (4-2-3-1) – Burki, Ginter, Sokratis, Hummels, Schmelzer, Weigl, Gundogan, Kagawa, Mkhitaryan, Reus, Aubameyang

Schalke (4-4-2) – Fahrmann, Caicara, Matip, Neustadter, Aogo, Sane, Goretzka, Hojbjerg, Meyer, Choupo-Moting

Injury List/Suspended Players

Dortmund – Sahin (inj), Durm (inj)
Schalke – Howedes (inj), Uchida (inj), Hoger (inj), Santana (inj), Nastastic (inj), Geis (sus)

League Positions