VfL Bochum and Wolfsburg will both be aiming to snap their winless streaks in the Bundesliga when they square off at Vonovia Ruhrstadion this Saturday afternoon.
Both these sides have made poor starts to the new season, with the hosts currently second-bottom in the league standings, while the visitors are 13th after five games.
Match preview
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After spending the majority of the 2023-24 season fighting relegation, Bochum look likely to struggle to avoid the drop this term unless they can find a much-need run of positive league results.
Five matches into the season and die Unabsteigbaren have earned only a single point, which came a fortnight ago in a 2-2 draw against newly promoted Holstein Kiel, who are the only other side in the division yet to win a game this term.
Bochum's single point after five rounds is also their second-worst record at this stage of a top-flight season - across their 37 previous Bundesliga campaigns, the only time they fared worse was back in the 2022-23 campaign.
Excluding promoted and relegated sides, Peter Zeidler's men have claimed the fewest points in the Bundesliga in 2024 (18), and have also conceded 52 goals in that time, which is the most of any team in the top flight during that period.
Since the 2008-09 season, the hosts have only managed to beat their upcoming opponent twice in their last 10 attempts in this competition, drawing two and losing six of the remaining eight games in that time.
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However, while Wolfsburg do have a better record in this fixture, they have only won one of their last five visits to Vonovia Ruhrstadion, losing two and drawing two of the other four games, including a 3-1 defeat in December last year.
Despite putting on a few valiant fights this season, Die Wolfe have failed to get the results for their efforts, losing 3-2 to Bayern Munich and 4-3 to Bayer Leverkusen, both matches which they led at some point.
Indeed, seeing out matches has been the major issue for Ralph Hasenhuttl's team - aside from losing from winning positions against Leverkusen and the Bavarians, they also dropped a point against Eintracht and two to a 10-man Stuttgart last week.
On the positive, though, Wolfsburg have scored in every league match so far this season, with their 10-goal tally being two more than third-placed Leipzig have recorded, and is currently the joint fourth-most in the Bundesliga.
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Team News
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Bochum could be missing Monaco loanee Myron Boadu for this match, with the Dutch striker reportedly suffering from illness since their 4-2 defeat on the road to Borussia Dortmund last week.
Should Boadu fail to return in time for kickoff this weekend, he will join the likes of Ivan Ordets (shoulder), Ibrahima Sissoko (thigh) and Bernardo, who are sidelined for this match due to injury.
Wolfsburg, on the other hand, have something of an injury crisis on their hands, with as many as eight players likely to miss out this weekend through injury, and Yannick Gerhardt set to sit out through suspension.
Among the injury absentees for the visitors this week are Lukas Nmecha, Rogerio, Kevin Paredes, Bartosz Bialek, Lovro Majer, Patrick Wimmer, Mattias Svanberg and Kilian Fischer.
VfL Bochum possible starting lineup:
Drewes; Passlack, Masovic, Medic, Wittek; Losilla, Sissoko, Bero; De Wit; Broschinski, Hofmann
Wolfsburg possible starting lineup:
Grabara; Bornauw, Zesiger, Koulierakis; Maehle, Ozcan, Arnold, Kaminski; Baku, Wind, Tomas
We say: VfL Bochum 2-2 Wolfsburg
While Wolfsburg come into this match with a slightly better record this season, their tendency to leak goals from good positions creates major doubts over their ability to secure a victory against Bochum on the road.
This looks like a very even contest on paper and we feel that both these sides will have to settle for a share of the spoils at the final whistle.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Devesh Jaganath
