Hamburger SV vs. Augsburg preview: Fuggerstädter out to end losing run | OneFootball

Hamburg

HSV are sitting in 12th spot after winning seven, drawing nine and losing 11 of their 27 matches. That return puts Hamburger six points clear of the bottom three with seven games left to play in the Bundesliga season. 

Merlin Polzin would have been content with the timing of the international break, offering his team the time to reset after winning one of their last six matches. After playing out a draw with Mainz, HSV fell to back-to-back defeats at home to RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen, before they returned to winning ways in their away clash against Wolfsburg. However, they failed to build upon that result in their next two matches, which saw them draw with FC Köln and lose narrowly to Borussia Dortmund. 

Hamburg will head into matchday 28 with hopes of ending their three-game winless home run. This will be the first time that HSV have welcomed Augsburg to Volksparkstadion since they claimed a 1-0 victory in August 2017. In fact, they have won three of their last four home matches against the WWK Arena.

Team News

The hosts are unable to call upon Jean-Luc Dompé, Bakery Jatta, Alexander Røssing-Lelesiit, Nicolás Capaldo, Fernando Dickes and Yussuf Poulsen due to injury. Meanwhile, Nicolai Remberg will serve a one-match ban for an accumulation of yellow cards. 

Predicted lineup: Fernandes; Omari, Vušković, Torunarigha; Mikelbrancis, Vieira, Lokonga, Grønbæk, Muheim; Königsdörffer, Otele

Augsburg

Augsburg are sitting in 10th spot and a point better off than Hamburg after winning nine, drawing four and losing 14 of their 27 league matches. The Fuggerstädter are seven points clear of danger and on course for another season of the Bundesliga football, but they will head into Saturday’s fixture on the back of a poor run of form. Manuel Baum’s side have suffered three consecutive defeats since enjoying a three-game winning run.  

After losing away to RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund, Augsburg slumped to a heavy 5-2 defeat in their home clash with Stuttgart before the international window. As a result, they have now conceded 50 goals across the Bundesliga season, leaving them with the fourth-worst defensive record in the division.

With that in mind, they will be hoping to replicate the sort of defensive display they produced in November’s reverse fixture with HSV. On that occasion, Antone Kade scored the decisive goal in a narrow 1-0 victory at the WWK Arena. They will now be looking to claim an away win over Hamburg for the first time since December 2015. 

Team News

Augsburg remain without the services of Yannik Keitel and Chrislain Matsima due to injury. 

Predicted lineup: Dahmen; Banks, Schlotterbeck, Zesiger; Fellhauer, Jakić, Massengo, Giannoulis; Rieder, Claude-Maurice; Ribeiro