Vfl Bochum will attempt to claim their first points of the season when they welcome Werder Bremen to the Vonovia Ruhrstadion.

The visitors, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back after suffering their first defeat of the season last weekend.

Match preview

© Reuters

Bochum are currently the only team in the Bundesliga without a point to their name after beginning the 2022-23 campaign with four consecutive league defeats.

Although three of their four games have been lost by a one-goal margin, Saturday's hosts will still be reeling from the humiliating 7-0 defeat that they suffered against Bayern Munich on matchday three.

They would have at least taken confidence from a battling performance in their most recent outing where they lost 1-0 to a difficult Freiburg side.

However, after conceding 13 goals across their opening four matches and failing to score in their previous two outings, there will be a sense of trepidation in the Bochum squad ahead of the weekend's contest.

Although they will face Bremen in a competitive game for the first time in over 12 years, Bochum will look to end a run of three consecutive defeats in meetings with Saturday's opponents.

© Reuters

As for Bremen, they have returned to the Bundesliga in an entertaining fashion, with the newly-promoted side's opening four games yielding 20 goals.

After beginning the campaign with consecutive 2-2 draws against Wolfsburg and Stuttgart, Oli Werner's charges faced potential title challengers Borussia Dortmund.

Despite entering the final stages of the contest with a two-goal deficit, Bremen managed to claim all three points in dramatic fashion, scoring three goals from the 89th minute onwards to claim a memorable 3-2 victory.

However, they were unable to claim consecutive wins despite leading 2-1 in last weekend's game against Eintracht Frankfurt, eventually losing 4-3 in an encounter that produced six goals by the 48th minute.

Bremen will now turn their attention to Saturday's contest where they have the chance to maintain their unbeaten away record this term after winning two and drawing one of their three competitive away matches.

Team News

© Reuters

Jannes Horn and Danilo Soares will be unavailable for Bochum due to hamstring and hip problems respectively, while Paul Grave and Christopher Antwi-Adjej are also set to miss out.

Philipp Hofmann may have to settle for a place on the bench for a second straight game, with Thomas Reis set to name an unchanged lineup despite losing last weekend.

Simon Zoller has scored three goals in his five competitive appearances this term, and the 31-year-old will look to add to that tally when he leads the line on Saturday.

As for the visitors, they will be without the services of Leonardo Bittencourt and Jean-Manuel Mbom due to injury issues.

Romano Schmid could replace the injured Bittencourt, who was forced off in the first half against Frankfurt last weekend.

Werner will retain his usual forward line of Marvin Ducksch and Niclas Fullkrug, with the latter looking to add to his three-goal tally for the season.

VfL Bochum possible starting lineup:
Riemann; Gamboa, Masovic, Heintz, Stafylidis; Goralski, Losilla; Asano, Stoger, Holtmann; Zoller

Werder Bremen possible starting lineup:
Pavlenka; Pieper, Friedl, Veljkovic; Weiser, Stage, Grob, Schmid, Jung; Ducksch, Fullkrug

We say: VfL Bochum 1-3 Werder Bremen

As in previous Bremen games this season, we expected Saturday's contest to produce goals, which we think will result in Bremen maintaining their unbeaten away record this term with a victory over a struggling Bochum side.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

Previews by email