THE BUNDESLIGA continues on Saturday evening and Tom Love (@TomLove_18) is on-hand to preview the match-up between Bayern Munich and Fortuna Dusseldorf.
Bayern Munich v Fortuna Dusseldorf | Saturday 29th May 2020, 17:30 | BT Sport
Current champions Bayern Munich made a major step towards sealing another league title midweek as they edged past challengers Borussia Dortmund with a 1-0 win which extended their lead at the top of the table to seven points.
The Bavarians were helped by the peripheral challengers also slipping up during the week, Borussia Monchengladbach drawing at lowly Bremen, RB Leipzig being held to a draw by Hertha Berlin and Leverkusen falling to a shock 4-1 loss to Wolfsburg.
On the face of it, it looked like a tricky fixture list for Die Roten come the restart, but a 100% record upon return has gave them ample space to have the possibility of slipping up and still winning the title. Hansi Flick deserves great credit for bringing Bayern back to what they’re best at, a relentlessness that is unmatched by many teams on the continent and the quality to take their chances when given to them.
FC Hollywood have a more agreeable fixture on Saturday evening as they welcome relegation-threatened Fortuna Dusseldorf to the Allianz Arena.
F95 had a huge win against Schalke midweek and they’ve now just lost a single game in their last nine. Admittedly, six of those were draws but it’s building from the back and being hard to beat under Uwe Rosler that has given the North Rhine Westphalia club a great chance of survival.
Rosler saw influential striker Rouwen Hennings return to the starting line-up against S04 and he scored the equalising goal before the revitalised Kenan Karaman notched the winner soon after. There must be a growing sense of confidence in the Dusseldorf camp but this is a bit of a free pass with bookmakers rating them as massive 40/1 shots!
The betting angles
Bayern are clear favourites and it’s increasingly hard to see them dropping points to anyone. I do think they’ll adopt a professional approach to try see out the season, a ‘get the job done’ kind of ethos until that silverware is theirs.
We have to be a bit creative with how we try and eek some value out of a home win, therefore I’m once again going to head to Bet365’s BetBuilder market to put together a same game multiple.
We can combine a Bayern win, Under 6 Goals and Bayern to have Over 2 First-Half Corners and garner a backable 5/6 shot and that looks just the ticket.
I talked last week about FC Hollywood and their corner record, easily the highest in the league and especially so at home. You get the feeling it will be played all in one half but Dusseldorf have rarely been embarrassed under Rosler’s watch and I expect them to keep the score respectable, with under 6 goals on our side we get a whole host of possible results onboard.
I’ll also dip into the player stats market again and the bet I like is Dusseldorf right wing back Matthias Zimmermann to make 2+ successful tackles and right-sided centre half Kaan Ayhan to make 1+ successful tackle which comes in as 10/11 double with Coral.
It’s being apparent that Bayern love to attack down the left flank with the likes of Alphonso Davies and Serge Gnabry and I’d expect them to do so again here. Dusseldorf will likely implement a narrow formation forcing Bayern out to the flanks and Zimmermann and Ayhan will have a job on their hands stopping the deadly duo from getting past.
If we look at the right-wing backs against Bayern of late we’ve seen Dortmund’s Achraf Hakimi rack up three tackles and Frankfurt’s Almamy Toure make two in the game before that. The right sided centre halves in those games in Lukas Piszczek and Stephan Ilsanker also saw two tackles each.
It’s a feature we’ve seen in a lot of games and if you take Zimmermann’s average tackles of 1.90 and Ayhan’s average of 1.30 it shows they’re not shy of hitting the numbers that would land this bet.
Best Bets
Bayern Munich v Fortuna Dusseldorf – Bayern Munich to win, Under 6 Goals and Bayern Munich Over 2 First-Half Corners (5/6 Bet365)
Bayern Munich v Fortuna Dusseldorf – Matthias Zimmermann 2+ tackles and Kaan Ayhan 1+ tackle (10/11 Coral)
