The final match of the Bundesliga weekend sees VfL Bochum and Wolfsburg meet at the Vonovia Ruhrstadion on Sunday afternoon, with the two sides level on points in the table.
Despite losing their last two matches of 2021, the hosts finished the calendar year in fairly strong form, whilst the visitors will hope to halt their freefall down the table by starting the New Year in brighter fashion.
Match preview
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After finishing last year with back-to-back defeats against Arminia Bielefeld and Union Berlin without scoring a goal, it could be viewed that Bochum finished 2021 poorly.
However, if the previous eight games are taken into account, when Thomas Reis' side lost just twice - to Borussia Monchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen - whilst winning five of the other six, it can be argued that the newly-promoted side were in excellent form prior to the winter break.
With just one win in their first seven games to begin the 2021-22 campaign, Die Unabsteigbaren appeared destined for an immediate return to the 2.Bundesliga, but Reis's team have displayed outstanding character and resilience to turn their poor start around.
As a result, Bochum begin 2022 in 12th place at the time of writing, but whilst that appears comfortable at this stage, only three points are between themselves and Stuttgart in the relegation playoff spot.
Therefore, Reis and Bochum will look to begin the new year with a positive result in order to pick up from where they left off in 2021, and will be looking for revenge following a 1-0 defeat to Sunday's opponents on the opening weekend of the Bundesliga season back in August.
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Meanwhile, Wolfsburg begin the New Year directly below their opponents in the table, but level on 20 points at the halfway stage.
However, back in September, when Wolfsburg were top of the Bundesliga table following a 100% start to the campaign under new manager Mark van Bommel, very few could have predicted such a lowly league position come the end of the calendar year.
Although performances were far from perfect under their Dutch head coach, it was difficult to envisage that the Wolves would win no more games in the eight that followed across all competitions.
His predecessor Florian Kohfeldt initially started his tenure with three consecutive victories, but even he has followed a similar pattern to van Bommel since, by winning no more encounters, and which included defeats in each of their last seven matches prior to the winter break.
Therefore, the three-week rest came at the perfect time for the German boss, who will have been keen to hit the reset button and start fresh in the New Year.
One solution he will be keen to address quickly will be his side's lack of goals, with 17 league goals from as many games to start the season a hugely disappointing return for the Wolves that finished in a Champions League spot in the 2020-21 campaign.
Although a trip to a newly-promoted opponent would usually be viewed as an ideal opportunity to correct those wrongs immediately in 2022, their meeting back in August, as previously mentioned, certainly proves the task will be more difficult than it seems.
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Team News
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Bochum could be set to hand a debut to Jurgen Locadia on Sunday, with the striker recently arriving on a short-term deal from Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion.
However, the Dutchman is expected to begin on the bench, with six-goal top goalscorer Sebastian Polter set to lead the line instead.
Fellow forwards Simon Zoller, Danny Blum, Tom Weilandt and Takuma Asano are all sidelined through injury, whilst Saulo Decarli and Konstantinos Stafylidis will be missing from the back line due to respective injuries as well.
Erhan Masovic serves a one-match suspension, meaning two changes will be required to the four-man defence, with the likes of Cristian Gamboa and Vasilis Lampropoulos looking to deputise.
As for the visitors, Lukas Nmecha's broken ankle is a huge setback for them, with the German forward being one of the few bright sparks of their disappointing campaign so far.
He joins a lengthy injury list at Wolfsburg, with William, Xaver Schlager and Paulo Otavio all out with long-term knee injuries, and Admir Mehmedi, Aster Vranckx, Josuha Guilavogui and Marvin Stefaniak all sidelined through injury as well.
Kevin Mbabu and Dodi Lukebakio further piled on the concerns for Kohfeldt and the visitors following their positive test results for COVID-19.
VfL Bochum possible starting lineup:
Riemann; Gamboa, Lampropoulos, Leitsch, Soares; Tesche, Losilla, Rexhbecaj; Pantovic, Polter, Antwi-Adjei
Wolfsburg possible starting lineup:
Casteels; Lacroix, Bornauw, Brooks; Baku, Arnold, Gerhardt, Roussillon; Steffen, Waldschmidt; Weghorst
We say: VfL Bochum 1-0 Wolfsburg
If these teams continue with the form that they left behind at the end of 2021, then we can see Bochum picking up a narrow victory on Sunday.
The visitors were in awful form, and with a lengthy injury list to contend with as well, they could be set for a difficult afternoon against a stubborn home side, and could easily come away empty handed as a result.
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 VfL Bochum win with a probability of 39.72%. A win for Wolfsburg had a probability of 34.81% and a draw had a probability of 25.5%.
The most likely scoreline for a VfL Bochum win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.1%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.63%) and 2-0 (6.51%). The likeliest Wolfsburg win was 0-1 (8.41%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.04%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with a 9.1% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted a 1-0 win for VfL Bochum in this match.
