Bayern Munich sit 7 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga with an available 15 points up for grabs meaning that 3 wins would increase their already record breaking streak of 7 straight titles. Their opposition and hosts today are Bayer Leverkusen who’re currently joint in 4th with Mönchengladbach (who lost against Freiburg last night) so any dropped points today would significantly dent their hopes for a top 4 finish and possibly be considered a missed opportunity.
The reverse fixture ended with 3 points for the away side Leverkusen, they came away 2-1 victors and manager Peter Bosz extended his 100% win-rate against Bayern as the manager of Leverkusen to 2 from 2. In that fixture, all goals were scored in the first half which is the normal for these sides, Leverkusen themselves have seen a goal in 11 of their 12 games this calendar year and in the previous 6 head to head’s between the sides there’s been an average of 2.17 first half goals.
Havertz has continued to fuel his form with 5 goals in 4 games and he was injured when the reverse fixture was played aswell, he’s the man to change the game and try and cement a Champions League spot. The race is well and truly on for the top 4 spaces after Monchengladbach’s loss last night, any points at all for Bayer today will move them up into 4th.
Bayern have been simply electric since the start of December. In November they lost back to back games, one of which was today’s reverse fixture and one was against Mönchengladbach; since then they’ve won 18 games and only drawn once. In the Champions League they’ve put themselves on the board as possible favourites after easily disposing of Tottenham and Chelsea and in the Bundesliga they’ve set a standard levels above the rest of the league of late. In the most recent 8 games they’ve collected 7 clean sheets and as expected, Lewandowski has hit the ground running with 4 goals in as many games.
For today’s game there’s no fresh injury worries but there is a few players on the brink of suspension at such an important time of the season. Leverkusen’s centre back pairing of Jonathan Tah and Aleksandar Dragović have both received 4 yellow cards each, hence one away from a suspension- Tah was also sent off in the reverse fixture. Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller, the league’s top goal scorer and goal creator are also both one yellow card away from being suspended.
It’s hard to ignore Leverkusen’s 100% win record vs Bayern whilst having Peter Bosz as manager but the way in which Bayern have been playing doesn’t seem to show any signs of real weakness. The league leaders have been priced at roughly 1/2 by the bookmakers but the value lies elsewhere. It is definitely worth noting that the last 6 head to heads between the sides have had 27 goals, an average of 4.5 goals a game.
A magnificent game for a neutral which could all but wrap up the title or open it up, shown below is a bet builder, created with some of the previously mentioned stats.
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