Schalke 04 entertain Freiburg in the Bundesliga on Wednesday, with the hosts desperately searching for a win after 27 league games without one.
Freiburg, meanwhile, put distance between themselves and the relegation zone with a 2-0 win against Arminia Bielefeld on Saturday.
Match preview
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Schalke were merely minutes away from ending their club-record winless run of 27 matches against Augsburg on Sunday, with their hearts broken by Marco Richter's last minute equaliser in a 2-2 draw.
Suat Serdar's own goal had given Augsburg the lead heading into the half-time interval, before Benito Raman levelled proceedings seven minutes into the second half.
Manuel Baum must have felt confident of gaining his first league win as Schalke manager when Florian Niederlechner was sent off only one minute after his side had equalised, with Nassim Boujellab putting the visitors ahead after the hour mark.
With the game into injury time, Richter struck to deny Schalke a first league win since January and keep them marooned to the bottom of the table. However, Baum may feel his side are due a stroke of luck, with a home game against Freiburg an opportunity to end the winless run.
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Having failed to win their 10 matches following the impressive opening day win at Stuttgart, Freiburg had slid perilously down the table in recent weeks.
With their weekend opponents Arminia just one point behind them in the relegation playoff position, the meeting between the two struggling sides was a real six-pointer.
Little separated Christian Streich and Uwe Neuhaus's sides for much of the 90 minutes, but two late goals from Vincenzo Grifo and Jeong Woo-yeong secured a crucial three points for the home side.
Streich and his players will now head to Schalke with plenty of confidence of gaining a result, with a win potentially putting more distance between themselves and the danger zone.
Schalke 04 Bundesliga form: DDLLLD
Schalke 04 form (all competitions): WDLLLD
Freiburg Bundesliga form: LLLDDW
Team News
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Schalke are without Goncalo Pacienca, Salif Sane and Mark Uth through injury, while Ahmed Kutucu is unavailable due to coronavirus.
Nabil Bentaleb and Amine Harit have not featured since a training ground bust-up with assistant manager Naldo last month, with Vedad Ibisevic's contract set to be terminated next month.
Mark Flekken and Janik Haberer are out injured for Freiburg, meanwhile, with Kwon Chang-hoon unavailable due to coronavirus.
Roland Sallai will be hoping to return to the starting XI having only featured from the bench against Arminia, but may have to remain patient after the crucial win.
Schalke 04 possible starting lineup:
Fahrmann; Stambouli, Kabak, Nastasic, Oczipka; Schopf, Boujellab, Mascarell, Serdar, Skrzybski; Raman
Freiburg possible starting lineup:
Muller; Lienhart, Schlotterbeck, Gulde; Schmid, Santamaria, Hofler, Gunter; Holer, Petersen, Grifo
We say: Schalke 04 1-2 Freiburg
With Schalke desperately short of options in attacking areas, we can envisage a second successive victory for the visitors.
Conceding a last-minute equaliser to ten-men Augsburg would have been a major blow to Manuel Baum's side, whereas ending their own lengthy winless run against Arminia will have boosted Freiburg considerably.
Top betting tip
Brett Curtis
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 Freiburg win with a probability of 41.96%. A win for Schalke 04 had a probability of 32.57% and a draw had a probability of 25.5%.
The most likely scoreline for a Freiburg win was 0-1 with a probability of 9.54%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (8.87%) and 0-2 (7.01%). The likeliest Schalke 04 win was 1-0 (8.21%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.06%). The actual scoreline of 0-2 was predicted with a 7% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Freiburg would win this match.
