Football betting analyst Mark O’Haire returns to share his favourite fancies from the weekend with a pair of plays from Germany this weekend.
Mark went 1-1 last week, and is aiming for one better this time around…
The Bundesliga – Europe’s highest-scoring major league – has been great fun to follow in the embryonic stages of the season.
Germany’s top-flight is averaging a huge 3.56 goals per-game with 70% of encounters beating the Over 2.5 Goals line, 52% of fixtures featuring four strikes or more and 61% of outings seeing both sides oblige.
Two of the chief protagonists now go head-to-head as basement battlers Augsburg and Darmstadt face-off on Saturday.
Collectively, the duo has seen Over 2.5 Goals click in 10 of their 12 combined encounters, with nine of those showdowns also banking in the Both Teams To Score column as neither side has yet managed a clean sheet.
Newly-promoted Darmstadt are returning a monstrous 4.67 goals per-game from their opening six outings, five of which have crossed the Over 3.5 Goals barrier.
Torsten Lieberknecht’s enterprising team have gotten on the scoresheet in five of those fixtures, yet have also managed to concede at least twice on five occasions.
Augsburg have been beaten in all three of their away days thus far, but the Fuggerstädter have earned W1-D2-L0 in front of their own supporters at the WWK Arena.
The Bavarians have notched eight times in that three-game sample, shipping seven goals of their own with a thrilling 4-4 draw followed by a 2-2 stalemate and a 2-1 success.
Like Darmstadt, Augsburg have leaked multiple goals in five of six contests already, and so with both sides expected to contribute in a perceived winnable encounter, the option to take Over 2.5 Goals at 1.76 shouldn’t be dismisssed.
The 2.Bundesliga has a reputation for entertainment and the early season action from Germany’s second-tier has provided plenty of fun. The division is delivering 3.15 goals per-game on average with an impressive 60% of contests covering the Over 2.5 Goals line – again, it’s the angle I’d like to attack when Kaiserslautern take on Hannover.
Both fallen giants have aspirations of returning to the big time this season and the two teams arrive at Friday’s fixture within striking distance of top spot.
Bundesliga champions as recently as 1998, Kaiserslautern have turned on the style after a sloppy start to go six games unbeaten (W4-D2-L0). Die Roten Teufel have plundered multiple goals in five of those six showdowns, with Dirk Schuster’s side delivering Over 2.5 Goals profit in seven of eight overall, with Both Teams To Score banking seven times.
Half of Lautern’s overall encounters have clicked in the Over 3.5 Goals market, whilst those eight dates averaging a whopping 3.82 Expected Goals (xG) per-game. All four Fritz-Walter-Stadion showdowns have landed the Over 2.5 honours this season with those fixtures averaging 4.00 goals per-game and 3.76 xG per-game.
Hannover head to Rhineland-Palatinate having scored twice or more in six of their opening eight games. However, the guests have also managed just a pair of clean sheets – both arriving when welcoming newly-promoted opposition that currently occupy a bottom-four position. BTTS has delivered in all four of Die Roten’s road trips with Over 2.5 in 3/4.
My goals model suggests the correct goals line for this game should be 3.0 so I’m more than happy to support Over 2.5 Goals at the available 1.77 ahead of Friday evening’s clash.
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