Frankfurt vs. Augsburg preview: Eintracht hope to recover from Pokal mishap | OneFootball

Frankfurt

After missing out on a chance to win eight consecutive matches on-the-trot in Wednesday's Pokal debacle, Dino Toppmöller's SGE unexpectedly tanked hard against struggling RB Leipzig amid some questionable decisions from their head-coach. Just four points below league-leaders FC Bayern München, many consider Eintracht to be genuine title-race contenders at this stage in the season. The RheinMainAdler will need to affirm that status here.

Team news:

Toppmöller revealed most of his squad plans at his Friday pre-match presser. Defender Arthur Theate should start, but it remains to be seen if the Belgian will work as a left back or will be needed in central defense to deputize for the questionable Robin Koch. It's reasonable to expect that Mahmoud Dahoud (for the injured Hugo Larsson) and Ansgar Knauff (for the ineffective Mario Götze) will move into the XI.

Augsburg

Jess Thorup's Augsburg come in fresh off a 120 minute Wednesday Pokal marathon against the Karlsruhe SC. A 1-0 win over Bochum in the league last weekend gave them their first Bundesliga win since upsetting Dortmund on match-day eight. The Fuggerstädter have had problems getting into gear early this season. Ruben Vargas (against Frankfurt on match-day 30 last year) was the last player to score a league goal in the opening 15 minutes.

Team news:

Speaking at his Friday press conference, Thorup said that - in a team talk - all of the players who featured against Karlsruhe on Wednesday "want to be back on the pitch" rather than rotated out. Greek wingback Dimitrios Giannoulis might be ready to return to the starting XI after bowing out with injury against Bayern two weeks ago. Keven Schlotterbeck returns from his one-match league suspension and will probably take over for Maximilian Bauer.