Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich will be looking to extend their lead at the top of the table when they host Mainz 05 at the Allianz Arena on Saturday.
The hosts have returned to their free-flowing best over the past week, whilst the visitors returned to winning ways last weekend to continue their strong start to the first half of the campaign.
Match preview
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Following a brief spell of relative struggles by Bayern's standards in recent weeks, where the champions stumbled to narrow victories over Freiburg, Dynamo Kiev and Arminia Bielefeld, with a shock defeat at Augsburg in between as well, the Bavarians have looked back to their exceptional best in the past two games.
Admittedly, the standards set by Julian Nagelsmann's side for the majority of the season so far have been at the highest level, with an astonishing amount of goals scored across an incredible 19 wins, one draw and just the three defeats in all competitions since the former RB Leipzig boss took over in the summer.
The past week has seen Die Bayern dispatch two giants of the game - a 3-2 triumph at Signal Iduna Park last weekend in Der Klassiker against Borussia Dortmund, before comfortably easing past Barcelona in the Champions League on Wednesday evening.
Victory in Dortmund was far from easy however, as Julian Brandt's opener five minutes in put Bayern on the back foot, but as they have done in many of their recent meetings, they overcame their rivals in the end through the class and quality that they possess in riches.
It was a thrilling encounter with some breathtaking attacking football on display from both sides, but Robert Lewandowski's double against his former club eventually saw Bayern open up a four-point gap over them at the Bundesliga summit.
Although he failed to find the net in midweek against Barcelona, where Bayern sealed their 100% record in the group stage following the comfortable win, Lewandowski goes in search of yet another Bundesliga record against Mainz on Saturday, where he currently sits on 40 league goals in the calendar year; just two short of Gerd Muller's record set in 1972.
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Meanwhile, the small blip in form suffered by Mainz during their excellent start to the campaign came to an end last weekend, when the Carnival side saw off European hopefuls Wolfsburg in comfortable fashion.
Jonathan Burkardt and Anton Stach handed Bo Svensson's side a 2-0 lead inside the opening four minutes at the Opel Arena, before an own goal from Maxence Lacroix in the final moments presented them with an emphatic 3-0 victory.
That win followed a small three-game winless spell, which by most years' standards would be hardly concerning, but following five wins from their previous 10 league games to start the season, it could well have been a small sign of the wheels beginning to fall off the strong start.
However, although Die Nullfunfer will not be expected to pick anything up at the Allianz Arena on Saturday, they do head into matchday 15 in seventh place in the table following the three points last weekend.
As well as their respectable league position compared to their usual standards of being near the foot of the table in most seasons, Mainz will take some confidence ahead of the 'free swing' against the leaders due to the fact that they defeated them 2-1 in their last meeting back in April.
Burkardt and Robin Quaison provided the goals on that day, but they will be keen to avoid a repeat of the 5-2 hammering on their last trip to Bayern in January.
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Team News
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Marcel Sabitzer resumed light training for the hosts earlier this week, but whilst the midfielder nears a return, he will continue to sit out on Saturday.
The Austrian will be joined by fellow central midfielders Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka and Mickael Cuisance, as well as Eric Choupo-Moting, Josip Stanisic and Serge Gnabry.
The lack of options mean Corentin Tolisso and Jamal Musiala should continue their run in the side at the base of the midfield, with Kingsley Coman, Thomas Muller and Leroy Sane continuing to support Lewandowski in attack.
As for the visitors, Jeremiah St Juste, Anderson Lucoqui and Dominik Kohr remain unavailable until after the winter break.
As a result, Svensson is likely to name an unchanged side following the victory over Wolfsburg last weekend, in what has been a settled starting 11 for much of the season to date.
Bayern Munich possible starting lineup:
Neuer; Pavard, Upamecano, Hernandez, Davies; Tolisso, Musiala; Coman, Muller, Sane; Lewandowski
Mainz 05 possible starting lineup:
Zentner; Bell, Hack, Niakhate; Widmer, Barreiro, Stach, Lee, Martin; Onisiwo, Burkardt
We say: Bayern Munich 3-1 Mainz 05
Despite the success of the visitors so far this campaign, Bayern will be expected to win comfortably at the Allianz Arena on Saturday.
When the champions are playing in this kind of form, it is difficult to see how many teams in the world could stop them, so Mainz are likely to be playing for damage limitation unfortunately for them.
Top tip
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 Bayern Munich win with a probability of 84.65%. A draw had a probability of 10% and a win for Mainz 05 had a probability of 5.31%.
The most likely scoreline for a Bayern Munich win was 3-0 with a probability of 10.58%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (9.87%) and 4-0 (8.52%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (4.56%), while for a Mainz 05 win it was 1-2 (1.7%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 7.3% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Bayern Munich would win this match.
