FC Koln will be back in action on Friday as they look to stretch their undefeated run to five games and continue to climb up the Bundesliga table.
Greuther Furth will travel to the RheinEnergieStadion as the search for a first victory of the season continues, with the visitors having just one point to their name.
Match preview
© Reuters
After they only just maintained their Bundesliga status last season by winning the relegation playoff game, Koln have responded perfectly at the start of the 2021-22 campaign.
With new manager Steffen Baumgart now in charge, he has made a strong start to life as the Koln boss, with his team only losing once so far in the league, which came against undefeated Bayern Munich.
Even their one defeat was closely fought, after a 3-2 battle against Julian Nagelsmann's squad, proving that The Billy Goats are now a force to be reckoned with.
Since that match, Koln have gone on an undefeated run of four games which has allowed them to climb to seventh place in the league, sitting just outside the European positions.
However, while they are enjoying a successful spell, their last three fixtures have all resulted in draws, with Baumgart's squad struggling to push over the line to secure the victories.
All of those matches ended 1-1, with the most recent game seeing Koln face Eintracht Frankfurt when Ellyes Skhiri's goal did not prove to be enough after they had taken the lead.
Greuther Furth were convincingly defeated 3-1 at the weekend when they faced Munich, even though the league leaders went down to 10 men early on in the second half.
Cedric Itten did find the back of the net for his team in that fixture, but it proved to be nothing more than a consolation as they had already conceded three by that point, including an own goal from Sebastian Griesbeck.
Stefan Leitl has yet to guide his squad to a win this season, including in the DFB-Pokal, with the squad struggling defensively at the moment, having let in 16 goals in the opening six games.
Their only positive result came when they faced Arminia Bielefeld, who are also in the relegation zone, when a penalty from Branimir Hrgota brought them back into the game to secure their first point.
Even a victory on Friday cannot take Greuther out of the bottom three - however, it would start to put pressure on the teams above, which is something that the club needs.
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Team News
Florian Kainz was brought straight back into the starting lineup on Saturday after serving his suspension, and that is expected to continue on Friday, meaning Jan Thielmann will miss out once again.
Koln are without Jannes Horn due to a hip problem, while Tim Lemperle is still unavailable due to an ankle injury, but outside of those, Baumgart has a fit squad and could use the same team again this week.
Greuther are also missing several key players, with Gideon Jung, Robin Kehr and Jessic Ngankam currently out of action, so there will be decisions needed from Leitl.
The visitors must change things up in order to get their first victory of the season, which could see some alterations to the starting XI with the likes of Itten and Dickson Abiama possibly having the chance to push into the team.
FC Koln possible starting lineup:
Holn; Schmitz, Kilian, Czichos, Hector; Skhiri, Kainz, Ljubicic, Duda; Andersson, Modeste
Greuther Furth possible starting lineup:
Burchert; Meyerhofer, Bauer, Viergever, Willems; Griesbeck, Seguin, Green; Itten, Nielsen, Dudziak
We say: FC Koln 2-0 Greuther Furth
Koln have enjoyed a brilliant start to the season and, considering the momentum that they have right now, it is hard to look past them securing a victory on Friday.
The visitors have been struggling to keep clean sheets and, without a win so far, Friday is going to be a difficult task for them.
Top tip
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 FC Koln win with a probability of 48.82%. A win for Greuther Furth had a probability of 27.55% and a draw had a probability of 23.6%.
The most likely scoreline for a FC Koln win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.51%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (8.83%) and 2-0 (7.64%). The likeliest Greuther Furth win was 1-2 (6.84%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.98%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 5.5% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that FC Koln would win this match.
