Borussia Dortmund will be looking for their fourth straight win in the Bundesliga when they host FC Koln at Signal Iduna Park on Saturday.
The hosts require the win in order to maintain the pressure on Bayern Munich at the top of the table, whilst the hosts will look to continue their fine start to the season after rescuing a point against their rivals last weekend.
Match preview
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Dortmund followed up their success against Arminia Bielefeld last weekend by defeating 2.Bundesliga side FC Ingolstadt 04 in the DFB-Pokal in midweek.
It was a completely dominant performance from the much-changed side, but despite registering 83% possession and 18 shots to their opponents' three, substitute Thorgan Hazard was required to net a late brace immediately after his arrival onto the pitch.
After seeing two fellow giants knocked out of the cup in the week, BVB will be confident of retaining their DFB-Pokal trophy come May.
However, their attentions return to the Bundesliga on Saturday, where the 3-1 victory in Bielefeld last weekend saw the Black and Yellows keep up with pace-setters Bayern early on in the campaign.
During a controlling first-half display, Emre Can's penalty and Mats Hummels' sensational volley ensured the visitors took a comfortable 2-0 advantage into the break, before Jude Bellingham's wonderful solo goal sealed the points and allowed Dortmund to take their foot off the pedal in the second half.
As a result, Marco Rose's side solidified second place in the table, and know that a win this weekend could see them overtake the Bavarians at the summit, who face a tough away trip to Union Berlin.
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Meanwhile, Koln come into this weekend's fixture off the back of a thrilling Rhineland derby against neighbours Bayer Leverkusen last weekend, which saw the Billy Goats come back from two goals down to draw 2-2.
Controlling proceedings from the beginning, Steffen Baumgart's side were perhaps unfortunate to find themselves two goals behind inside the opening 17 minutes against their counter-attacking opponents.
If the first half was fairly even, the second half certainly belonged to Koln though, who pushed hard and were rewarded through Anthony Modeste's brace, his fifth and sixth goals in the league so far.
Following on from that comeback point, Modeste and Koln impressed again in midweek when they travelled to Stuttgart for the second round of the DFB-Pokal.
Baumgart's side were slow out of the blocks but took the game to their hosts in the second half, with their in-form French striker again netting a brace to see Koln safely through to the third round via a 2-0 victory.
Focus turns back to league action now, though, and last weekend's point means Saturday's visitors sit in eighth place heading into this encounter, with just two defeats suffered from their nine opening league fixtures.
As a result, confidence will be high, especially considering Koln took four points off Dortmund in their two meetings last season, including a 2-1 triumph at Signal Iduna Park.
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Team News
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Erling Braut Haaland misses out again on Saturday, with the Norwegian striker still suffering from his hip injury that is expected to keep him sidelined for the next couple of weeks.
The home side continue to struggle in his absence, but after his midweek brace in the cup, Hazard should come into the side to help fill the void alongside Marco Reus and Donyell Malen.
The Belgian may have to settle for a left wing-back role however, with Marcel Schmelzer, Nico Schulz and Raphael Guerreiro all being ruled out in that area of the pitch.
Mateu Morey, Giovanni Reyna and Gregor Kobel are all out too, although Mahmoud Dahoud and Youssoufa Moukoko could return after recent absences.
As for the visitors, Ellyes Skhiri remains unavailable due to a fractured fibula, which comes as a blow considering the midfielder was the hero in this fixture last season, with his brace helping Koln to the 2-1 success.
Niklas Hauptmann is also likely to miss out through illness, although the midfielder is yet to feature this season anyway.
Jannes Horn is the only other doubt due to his hip problem, which has left him on the sidelines for the whole of the current campaign so far as well.
Borussia Dortmund possible starting lineup:
Hitz; Akanji, Pongracic, Hummels; Meunier, Can, Bellingham, Hazard; Brandt, Reus; Malen
FC Koln possible starting lineup:
T Horn; Schmitz, Kilian, Czichos, Hector; Ozcan, Ljubicic, Kainz; Duda; Modeste, Uth
We say: Borussia Dortmund 2-2 FC Koln
We are predicting Koln to pick up a shock point in this fixture on Saturday, largely due to their buoyant mood as a result of their last two games, as well as the absence of Haaland for the hosts.
Dortmund seem to be a completely different side without him, and despite winning all five previous home league games so far this campaign, we can see them dropping points against their confident opponents in this one.
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 Borussia Dortmund win with a probability of 66.61%. A draw had a probability of 19.3% and a win for FC Koln had a probability of 14.09%.
The most likely scoreline for a Borussia Dortmund win was 2-0 with a probability of 11.22%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (10.43%) and 2-1 (9.82%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (9.13%), while for a FC Koln win it was 0-1 (4.25%). The actual scoreline of 2-0 was predicted with an 11.2% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 2-0 win for Borussia Dortmund in this match.
