Hamburger vs Leverkusen Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Haydn Cunningham Oct 13, 2015 @ 07:16 am

The Imtech Arena welcomes Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday and they’ve had a lot more reasons to be cheerful after last season’s dreadful campaign that saw them survive relegation by the skin of their teeth. Hamburg were above Leverkusen after Round 6 but back-to-back defeats against Schalke and Hertha BSC has seen them slip down to 11^th place. Their passionate fans would’ve been fearing the worst after their opening day defeat to Bayern Munich where they were hammered 5-0 but Munich are the exception and they went on to gain 10 points from their next 5 Bundesliga games which has put them in good stead.

Leverkusen have dwindled of late having set a very good benchmark at the start of the season. The recent defeat to Barcelona after leading for so long at the Nou Camp knocked some of the stuffing out of them as they laboured to a 1-1 draw against lowly Augsburg at the BayArena. Roger Schmidt has done a fantastic job in getting Leverkusen back into the Champions League in his first season at the club after joining from Austrian Champions, Salzburg and has built a very young side at Leverkusen. They have an extremely bright future with Bernd Leno (23-years old), Jonathan Tah (19), Wendell (22), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (23), Julien Brandt (19), Christoph Kramer (24), Hakan Calhanoglu and Admir Mehmedi (24) all key players amongst the current set up.

Hamburg have their own youngster coming through the ranks in Gideon Jung. The 21-year old defender featured in Hamburg’s opening Bundesliga games against Bayern Munich, Stuttgart and Koln but has been dropped back down to Hamburg’s U23 set up who feature in the Regionalliga Nord. His international future is still up in the air with Jung eligible for both Ghana and Germany. Bruno Labbadia’s decision to demote Jung has angered many Hamburg supporters who have criticised the move and Labbadia will want the fans on his side as they prepare to face one of his old clubs who he managed in the 2008/2009 season.

Leverkusen will be looking to bounce back after gifting the points away with an own goal and a missed penalty against Augsburg. Schmidt is unlikely to make drastic changes and is still unable to call on Roberto Hilbert who is still out through injury. Schmidt could recall Stefan Kiessling but the forward who’s entering his 10^th season at the club hasn’t scored since the opening day victory over Hoffenheim. Hamburg have no new injury concerns to worry about as the few internationals they have in the squad all came through unscathed.

 Hamburg

Stats: W-3 L-4 D-1

Recent Form - WDWLL

Bayer Leverkusen

Stats: W-4 L-3 D-1

Recent Form – WLWWL

Head-to-head record:

Possible Line-ups

Hamburg (4-2-3-1) – Drobny, Ostrzolek, Spahic, Djourou, Diekmeier, Diaz, Ekdal, Holtby, Hunt, Olic, Lasogga.

Bayer Leverkusen (4-3-3) – Leno, Donati, Tah, Papadopoulos, Wendell, Kampl, Bender, Kramer, Calhanoglu, Bellarabi, Hernandez.

Injury List/Suspended Players

Hamburg – Hirzel (inj), Rudnevs (inj), Marcos (inj)
Bayer Leverkusen – Hilbert (inj), Toprak (inj), Yurchenko (inj).

League Positions