Borussia Dortmund will be aiming to keep the pressure on Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich when they make the trip to Wolfsburg on Saturday afternoon.
Both teams made a winning return to league action last weekend, with Dortmund remaining within four points of top spot and Wolfsburg moving up to sixth.
Match preview
© Reuters
Dortmund showed no signs of rustiness in seeing off local rivals Schalke 04 4-0 in their first game back following the coronavirus-enforced shutdown.
BVB were left to stew on a disappointing Champions League last-16 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain for two months, but they were quick to send out a message to Bayern last week.
Erling Braut Haaland picked up from where he left off by scoring the opener, followed by a couple of goals from Raphael Guerreiro and one from Thorgan Hazard.
Lucien Favre's side have now won five Bundesliga matches in a row, scoring 12 goals and conceding just once during that impressive run of results.
However, Bayern have also won five in a row and are four points better off at the summit with eight matches to go.
The good news for Dortmund is that one of those matches is against Bayern, with next week's Der Klassiker set to have plenty riding on it.
© Reuters
For that to happen, BVB need to keep their winning run going when they head to the Volkswagen Arena on Saturday.
The Wolves will certainly not make things easy for their opponents, having gone unbeaten in their last seven matches following on from a run of three defeats in a row.
A return of 15 points from the last 21 on offer has lifted Oliver Glasner's side into sixth, the same position that they finished in last season.
Not since gameweek nine have Wolfsburg held hold of one of the European spots, and the challenge now is to hold on to sixth.
That will not be easy as Freiburg and Schalke are within two points of them and Hoffenheim are a further two points adrift.
This is not a fixture the Wolves tend to do well in, though, having taken only one point from their last nine league meetings against Dortmund, including four home losses in a row.
Wolfsburg's Bundesliga form: DWWDDW
Wolfsburg's form (all competitions): WWDDLW
Borussia Dortmund's Bundesliga form: LWWWWW
Borussia Dortmund's form (all competitions): WWWWLW
Team News
© Reuters
Daniel Ginczek scored a late winner in Wolfsburg's 2-1 win over Augsburg last weekend, but he may start this one on the bench as Wout Weghorst is back from suspension.
That last-gasp winner was set up by Kevin Mbabu, who is expected to retain his place at right-back in the absence of injured defender William.
Yannick Gerhardt and club captain Josuha Guilavogui remain absent through injury, meanwhile, so changes may be kept to a minimum.
As for Dortmund, Jadon Sancho has had another week to shake off a troublesome groin injury and should return to the starting lineup on Saturday.
Emre Can is also back in contention after sitting out the Schalke win, but fellow holding midfielder Axel Witsel is not yet ready to return.
Dortmund's other high-profile absentee is Marco Reus, who may miss the remainder of the season, while Dan-Axel Zagadou will also play no part for the foreseeable future.
Wolfsburg possible starting lineup:
Casteels; Mbabu, Knoche, Brooks, Otavio; Schlager, Arnold; Steffen, Mehmedi, Brekalo; Weghorst
Borussia Dortmund possible starting lineup:
Burki; Piszczek, Hummels, Akanji; Hakimi, Can, Brandt, Guerreiro; Sancho, Haaland, Hazard
We say: Wolfsburg 0-2 Borussia Dortmund
Wolfsburg may be in decent form, but they have a terrible recent record against Dortmund. In fact, the hosts have failed to score in any of their last six league encounters with BVB, so we are expecting this to end only one way.
Daniel Lewis
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 Borussia Dortmund win with a probability of 44.66%. A win for Wolfsburg had a probability of 32.06% and a draw had a probability of 23.3%.
The most likely scoreline for a Borussia Dortmund win was 1-2 with a probability of 9.06%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-1 (7.27%) and 0-2 (6.3%). The likeliest Wolfsburg win was 2-1 (7.52%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.45%). The actual scoreline of 0-2 was predicted with a 6.3% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Borussia Dortmund would win this match.
