Augsburg v FC Koln
Sunday June 7, 17:00
Watch it on BT Sport 1 & Betfair Live Video
Bad timing
Twelfth-placed Augsburg host 13th-placed FC Koln at the WWK Arena on Sunday evening. The match comes at a tricky point for both clubs. After four games in charge, Heiko Herrlich is yet to taste victory as Augsburg’s coach. On home turf, he has watched his side lose 1-2 to Europe-chasing Wolfsburg and, most recently, draw 0-0 with bottom-of-the-table Paderborn.
Closed-door football has not suited FC Koln either. Since they started playing in empty stadia, the Billy Goats have taken two points from a possible 15 (W0-D2-L3). Immediately prior to that, a seismic new-manager bounce had seen them win 8/10 league games home and away, only losing to the top two. Nevertheless, they have scored in 17/18 Bundesliga matches since Markus Gisdol took the reins and, where there are goals, there is hope.
The market makes the visitors narrow favourites but, as well as their recent crowd-related troubles, there may be another psychological barrier for them to overcome: Opta has noticed that they have not won any of 10 league meetings with Augsburg since 2014 (W0-D5-L5).
On the other hand, Augsburg are historically bad at hosting promoted teams. They are winless in 11 such matches (W0-D6-L5) – only one other team in Bundesliga history has ever been on a longer run.
It’s a pick-em game, so the draw might appeal because it offers the longest price. Just remember: the more goals there are, the less likely a game is to be drawn. We’re anticipating more than just a couple of goals in this one, so we’ll swerve the outcome markets.
Goals look guaranteed
We are only really looking one side of the goals line: home and away, each of Koln’s last 12 Bundesliga games have delivered Over 2.5 Goals. Since the start of the season, seven of the Billy Goats’ eight road matches have been high scorers.
The trend is almost as strong at Augsburg’s WWK Arena. Eleven of this season’s 14 league games there have produced Over 2.5 Goals. That goalless draw with Paderborn is very much an outlier for now – both teams have scored in 10/14, with the host managing clean sheets in 3/14.
Such is the shakiness of these two defences – Koln have achieved just a single clean sheet from 14 away games this term – the case can be made to go a little higher. Over 3.5 Goals has landed in half of Koln’s 14 road trips (including 5/8 most recently) and 5/11 Augsburg home games. It looks good value at around [3.00].
Cordoba to deliver?
Koln striker Jhon Cordoba has scored 12 times in his last 17 league appearances, notching at least once in 10/17. He’s a tempting proposition at 17/10 on the Sportsbook but there’s a caveat: only two of those goals have come away from Koln’s own RheinEnergie Stadium; in fact, the Colombian’s only scored on 1/11 Bundesliga road trips since the start of term. Check too that he makes the starting XI: Cordoba was subbed off as an injury precaution against Leipzig on Monday night.
At a longer price, Cordoba’s deeper-lying colleague Mark Uth might be the one to punt on. At 23/10, he’s scored in 5/9 anywhere since late January, including 3/5 road trips.
Source: Betfair German
