RB Leipzig host Freiburg on Saturday having lost top spot in the table in the early stages of the 2020-21 Bundesliga season after a 1-0 defeat at Borussia Monchengladbach last weekend.
Freiburg, meanwhile, are without a win since the opening day of the season and are sliding closer to the relegation zone each week as a result.
Match preview
© Reuters
After a flying start to the season in which Leipzig took 13 points from their opening five matches, it has been a tougher 10 days for Julian Nagelsmann's side having been defeated by Gladbach as well as hammered 5-0 by Manchester United in the Champions League.
The damage to his side's confidence was clearly visible at Borussia Park, with Dayot Upamecano's poor performance at Old Trafford carrying over. The French defender's attempted pass into midfield was intercepted by Patrick Herrmann, who in a very dangerous two-on-one situation perhaps passed to Alassane Plea a little too late with the Frenchman's strike tamely down the throat of Peter Gulasci.
Leipzig, utilising Yussuf Poulsen and Alexander Sorloth in tandem in attack, lacked their usual fluidity and were punished by Hannes Wolf, who is on loan at Gladbach from Nagelsmann's side. Plea's cross was cleverly touched by Hermann into Wolf's path, with the 21-year-old excellently firing into the far corner to give Gladbach the lead, which only ever looked like being extended in truth.
However, Leipzig showed plenty of resolve in midweek by earning a crucial 2-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. The Parisians were without Neymar and Kylian Mbappe due to injury, with Idrissa Gueye and Presnel Kimpembe both seeing red in the second half, but Christopher Nkunku and Emil Forsberg's strikes gave the Germans a deserved win which ensures that qualification to the knockout stages for a second successive season remains in their hands.
© Reuters
Christian Streich's side, meanwhile, are without a win since beating Stuttgart 3-2 on the opening day of the season.
They looked like ending that barren run when taking the lead against Bayer Leverkusen last weekend, with Lucas Holer giving the hosts the lead in only the third minute with his first goal of the season. That lead looked to have doubled when Holer picked out Jonathan Schmid, who superbly volleyed into the top corner, but Holer was adjudged to have been offside when originally played through. Freiburg's bad luck doubled when Sven Bender's red card for pulling back Holer as he attempted to race through was downgraded to a yellow card, with Edmond Tapsoba clearly covering his centre-half partner on the replay.
Lucas Alario turned the game on its head, capitalising on a sloppy backpass by Nicolas Hofler to fire past Florian Muller before another poor Hofler pass on the edge of his area allowed Alario to bag his second brace in two matches after a fine cutback by Lars Bender. The usually reliable Hofler certainly had a match to forget, with another loose pass punished by Nadiem Amiri's superb strike from outside of the penalty area after the Leverkusen midfielder cleverly jinked back onto his preferred right foot.
Any hopes of gaining a result after Nils Petersen bundled home from close range were quickly extinguished by Jonathan Tah's powerful header from a corner earning the visitors a 4-2 victory in a hugely entertaining affair.
On the face of it, Freiburg's poor form would make travelling to Leipzig seem a very unpalatable proposition, but Streich's side did gain four points from the two sides' meetings last season so will understandably feel they have a chance of gaining a positive result.
RB Leipzig Bundesliga form: WDWWWL
RB Leipzig form (all competitions): WWWLLW
Freiburg Bundesliga form: WDLDDL
Team News
© Reuters
Nagelsmann remains without defensive options Lukas Klostermann (knee), Marcel Halstenberg (muscular) and Konrad Laimer (ankle), with midfielder Fabrice Hartmann still out with a ruptured knee ligament.
The 33-year-old is likely to restore midweek goalscorers Forsberg and Nkunku to the league starting XI after Sorloth and 18-year-old Lazar Samardzic started in their place in the defeat to Gladbach.
Streich, meanwhile, is without Janik Haberer due to an ankle injury, with goalkeeper Mark Flekken also out with an elbow issue.
The 55-year-old may be tempted to hand Petersen a start alongside Holer in an attempt to threaten a vulnerable Leipzig defensive line.
RB Leipzig possible starting lineup:
Gulasci; Henrichs, Orban, Upamecano, Tasende; Kampl, Sabitzer; Nkunku, Forsberg, Olmo; Poulsen
Freiburg possible starting lineup:
Muller; Kubler, Lienhart, Heintz, Gunter; Santamaria, Hofler; Sallai, Grifo; Petersen, Holer
We say: RB Leipzig 2-1 Freiburg
We expect Leipzig to use the midweek win over PSG as an important confidence boost on their way to a narrow victory here.
Freiburg looked good offensively against Leverkusen and with a bit more luck in their favour easily could have won on another day, but Leipzig should control the game more efficiently than Peter Bosz's side.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting a home win in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Home Win:dataData 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 RB Leipzig win with a probability of 63.74%. A draw had a probability of 20.9% and a win for Freiburg had a probability of 15.39%.
The most likely scoreline for a RB Leipzig win was 1-0 with a probability of 11.6%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.51%) and 2-1 (9.84%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (9.92%), while for a Freiburg win it was 0-1 (5%). The actual scoreline of 3-0 was predicted with a 7.6% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that RB Leipzig would win this match.
