EUROPEAN football fanatic Mark O'Haire (@MarkOHaire) heads to Germany on Sunday for his latest best bet on the continent.
Borussia Monchengladbach v Werder Bremen | Sunday 10th November 2019, 12:30 | BT Sport
The Bundesliga is Europe’s second-highest scoring major league in 2019/20 (behind the Eredivisie) and Sunday’s showdown between Borussia Monchengladbach and Werder Bremen promises to push the current 3.16 goals per-game average up even higher.
A huge 71% of games in Germany’s top-flight have crossed the Over 2.5 Goals barrier already with 63% registering for Both Teams To Score backers. This weekend’s battle at Borussia-Park features two of the division’s chief protagonists – 16 (80%) of their collective outings have produced three or more goals with 15 (755) landing BTTS honours.
So naturally, my weekend NAP homes in on the two combined markets with Bet365 paying a very reasonable 4/5 on Over 2 Goals and Both Teams To Score via the Bet Builder option.
Gladbach head the pack
Gladbach remain top of the table, extending their advantage at the summit to three points following a 2-1 success at Bayer Leverkusen last weekend. The Foals were without forwards Alassane Plea and Breel Embolo for that encounter but Marco Rose's side produced a workmanlike performance to bounce back after a DFB Pokal exit at hands of Dortmund.
Embolo and Plea remain major doubts, so Lars Stindl and/or Patrick Herrmann could feature alongside top scorer Marcus Thuram. The Frenchman is one of 10 different players to have found the net for the club this season with only Bayern, Leipzig (both 25) and Dortmund (23) scoring more than the Foals' 21 goal-tally.
Gladbach have also performed with aplomb in defensive areas, boasting the division's second-meanest backline. And the underlying data metrics suggest the Foals are in their lofty position on merit, posting top three ratio returns when viewing both Expected Goals (xG) and xG from open play. However, they’re by no means infallible.
Bremen to take front-foot approach
Werder Bremen are certainly no easy meat – as Dortmund will testify – and Florien Kohfeldt’s troops travel south with a solitary loss from their first five away days this term (W1-D3-L1). Remarkably, the River Islanders have notched at least twice in all five of those fixtures, including trips to Dortmund, Leverkusen and Frankfurt, highlighting their threat.
In fact, since the beginning of 2018/19, Werder have fired a solitary blank 22 games as guests in the Bundesliga,. This term alone, the visitors are amongst the leading pack across a range of attacking metrics with Kohfeldt’s outfit only being held back by a troublesome backline that continues to concede goals at an alarming rate.
Since taking charge, Kohfeldt’s overseen only three clean sheets in 34 road trips and that’s contributed to a gluttony of goal-filled game. An eye-boggling 18/22 (82%) matches outside of Bremen since the start of last season saw BTTS bank with a chunky 3.00 goals per-game average delivered during that same sample.
This term, Bayern Munich (4.10) are the only team in the division to see more goals per-game on average across the campaign compared to the River Islanders (3.80), whilst Werder have surpassed the Over 4.5 Goals line in four of five away days. Gladbach are slightly less prolific but still very capable of playing a part in a goal-heavy game.
Best Bets
Borussia Monchengladbach v Werder Bremen – Over 2 Goals and Both Teams To Score (4/5 Bet365)
