Borussia Dortmund will be looking to get their Bundesliga title challenge back on track when they return from the winter break at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.
The hosts finished 2021 in excellent form by winning six of their last seven league games, whilst the visitors finished poorly as they slipped further away from Bayern Munich at the summit.
Match preview
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Following an initial poor start to the campaign where Frankfurt were winless from their opening eight games in all competitions under new manager Oliver Glasner, Die Adler have since gone from strength to strength under the Austrian boss.
An unbeaten Europa League group stage, that saw Saturday's hosts top their group, was coupled with a revival in their league form that left Frankfurt in sixth place as the curtain came down on 2021.
As mentioned above, this was largely thanks to Glasner's side winning six of their final seven Bundesliga fixtures prior to the winter break, with the only setback being a thrilling 3-2 defeat at fellow high-flyers Hoffenheim.
The final game of that spell was a more reserved encounter though, with Frankfurt narrowly edging out Mainz 05 by a 1-0 scoreline, with Jesper Lindstrom netting the only goal of the game in the first half.
The result not only lifted Frankfurt into the top six, but it also dragged them to within two points of the race for the Champions League places that they agonisingly missed out on so narrowly last campaign.
With so many teams fighting it out for the European spots that are separated by just a few points, the hosts will need to pick up from where they left off before the break by beginning the new year brightly on Saturday if they are to remain in the mix.
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Meanwhile, Dortmund's usual inability to defeat Bayern in Der Klassiker, as well as their lack of consistency in winnable fixtures against bottom-half sides, have left their title chances hanging by a thread heading into 2022.
As a result of this, BVB finished the calendar year with just a single win from their final four Bundesliga games, which leaves Marco Rose's side nine points off the pace at the top of the table.
With Bayern unlikely to drop many more points in the second half of the campaign, Dortmund would be required to win most of, if not all, of their remaining fixtures, unless their title rivals miraculously slip up more than expected.
All Rose and his side can control though is their own destiny, so he will be looking for his team to bounce back from a typical Dortmund result last time out in 2021, when the Black and Yellows fell 3-2 at bottom-half side Hertha Berlin.
Julian Brandt had given them the lead just after the half-an-hour mark, but a second-half collapse, that saw Dortmund concede three times inside 19 minutes, eventually led to them losing against another struggling opponent, as well as dropping more points in winnable games on the road.
In fact, Dortmund's sixth-placed away record this campaign is evidence to their struggles away from Signal Iduna Park, which has seen them record just 10 points from their first eight away matches this season.
If Rose's side are to reignite their slight glimmer of hope in staying in the title race, then they must keep the pressure on Bayern by winning at every opportunity, and correct their faltering away form in the process, beginning at the Commerzbank Arena on Saturday.
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Team News
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Frankfurt's match winner last time out, Lindstrom, as well as Danny da Costa, will be unavailable for their return to action on Saturday, with the duo missing out after testing positive for COVID-19.
The pair will join Jens Petter Hauge and Christopher Lenz on the sidelines, and the hosts will also be without Aymen Barkok, who has been called up to represent Morocco at AFCON this month.
Kristijan Jakic and Goncalo Paciencia have returned to training though, and both will be pushing to start against Dortmund.
As for the visitors, Dan-Axel Zagadou will join the lengthy list of absentees after he tested positive for COVID-19 recently.
The French youngster joins fellow defenders Mateu Morey, Marcel Schmelzer and Manuel Akanji on the sidelines, so Rose will be hopeful that Mats Hummels has recovered from a cold in time to start at the Commerzbank Arena.
First-choice goalkeeper Gregor Kobel is also suffering from illness, whilst second choice Roman Burki is also expected to miss out through an ankle injury, meaning the experienced Marwin Hitz could be required between the posts once more.
Marco Reus, Youssoufa Moukoko and Giovanni Reyna make up the list, as Dortmund remain short of options yet again.
Eintracht Frankfurt possible starting lineup:
Trapp; Tuta, Hinteregger, N'Dicka; Chandler, Jakic, Sow, Kostic; Borre, Kamada; Paciencia
Borussia Dortmund possible starting lineup:
Hitz; Meunier, Hummels, Pongracic, Guerreiro; Bellingham, Can; Hazard, Brandt, Malen; Haaland
We say: Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 Borussia Dortmund
This game should be an exciting encounter for the neutral, with both sides possessing great fire power up front whilst also being guilty of leaking goals at the other end of the pitch as well.
If Frankfurt can pick up from where they left off prior to the break, then we can see them winning this encounter to inflict another miserable away day for Dortmund, with their lengthy injury list proving frustrating once more.
Top tip
Matthew Tranter
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Borussia Dortmund win with a probability of 45.63%. A win for Eintracht Frankfurt had a probability of 31.54% and a draw had a probability of 22.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Borussia Dortmund win was 1-2 with a probability of 9.06%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-1 (6.87%) and 0-2 (6.18%). The likeliest Eintracht Frankfurt win was 2-1 (7.38%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.07%). The actual scoreline of 2-3 was predicted with a 4% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Borussia Dortmund would win this match.
