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Werder – Hertha. Mark O’Haire’s prediction (VIDEO)
A Man of the Match performance from Clemens Fritz inspired Werder Bremen to come from a goal down to beat Schalke away 3-1 in their first outing of 2016.
The three points brought the River Islanders four points clear of the bottom-two, but Victor Skrypnyk’s side remain entrenched in a relegation battle. So they’ll be desperate to arrest a worryingly poor record at their Weserstadion this season.
Werder have enjoyed a superb return when welcoming Saturday’s visitors Hertha Berlin (W7-D0-L0) in recent years but their four-point tally from eight fixtures (W1-D1-L6) in front of their home fans is a Bundesliga low in 2015/16.
Bremen will first need to sort out a diabolical backline that’s now shipped goals in each of their last 21 league fixtures – a club record. Papy Djilobodji should start at centre-back after his loan signing but even so, the hosts have lost 13 of their previous 20 when entertaining top-six sides.
Hertha arrives with 10 points garnered from their last four games and they’re also now 66 minutes away from breaking their own club record. Coming into this clash, the capital club have kept their sheets clean for 421 minutes across all competitions, coming close to beating the previous record set in 1989/99.
Pal Dardai’s guided Berlin to a remarkable third-place with a side built from the back – only Bayern Munich have kept more clean sheets than the visitors’ eight. And the runaway league leaders are the only side to stop Hertha winning in their most recent three road trips.
All in all, the visitors look underrated in the markets and can be backed off a 0 Asian Handicap start at 1.97. If they win, we get paid out at the advertised odds with a draw seeing our stake returned. The only way in which we’ll finish out of pocket is if Bremen bag an unlikely second home league victory of the season.
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