Hansi Flick’s FC Bayern are seven points clear at the top of the Bundesliga table, but with 14 rounds to play they had a timely reminder that no team is guaranteed to roll over for the champions.
Bayern’s trip away to Hertha Berlin looked, on paper, like a regulation victory for the Bavarians against a team 15th in the table and on a run of three consecutive defeats. And when Kingsley Coman smashed home the opener on 21 minutes we expected the floodgates to open.
But they didn’t.
Coman had another shot saved and Robert Lewandowski showed that he was human, failing to add to his 24 league goals when he missed a hatful of headers, while Hertha’s on-loan midfielder Matteo Guendouzi forced a save from Manuel Neuer. The hosts came agonizingly close to grabbing a late leveller when Matheus Cunha collected a through ball from Guendouzi and slid his shot inches wide.
Had Cunha scored that would have been huge Bundesliga 2021 news and the gap between Bayern and second place would have reduced to five points.
Red Bulls Bayern’s biggest threat
Die Roten Bullen made it three wins in four with a 3-0 victory over bottom-club Schalke to the lead the chasing pack in second place. With other chasers faltering, Red Bull are fast emerging as the only team capable of catching Bayern.
The Bundesliga 2021 betting odds pitch Julian Nagelsmann at around 26.00 to wrestle the title from Bavaria, with the rest of the field in three figures. It’s a tough ask but the Red Bulls are still fighting, and they were clinical in dispatching Schalke with goals from Nordi Mukiele, Marcel Sabitzer and Willi Orban.
Keep watching the odds at SBOTOP folks, for the best range of Asian Handicap betting options, Leipzig will be backed in most of their remaining games, but they might just need to win them all.
Die Wolfe have a real bite
Wolfsburg moved up to third place in the Bundesliga table with a comfortable 2-0 victory away to FC Augsburg. With the lion’s share of possession, Wolfsburg won the shot count by 16 to nine and six to one on target; that’s a dominant performance away from home.
Oliver Glasner’s team has a great chance to improve on last season’s seventh-placed finish with 6ft 6in striker Wout Weghorst in superb form, notching his 14th league goal of the season before earning an assist when he set up Ridle Baku for the second.
Wolfsburg are fighting for a Champions League place on two fronts. They have a Europa League Round of 32 match against Tottenham Hotspur to come in a couple of weeks, and that will be a fascinating clash against Jose Mourinho’s misfiring Spurs, particularly if their captain Harry Kane is still injured.
BVB need a reset
The chasing pack have been inconsistent at best in this campaign and Dortmund have been suffering more than most. Defeat to Freiburg on Saturday was their eighth in 20 league games, a horrifying statistic for a team which started the season as second favourites.
They dominated for long periods of their match against Freiburg, but lacked a cutting edge and went 2-0 down shortly after half-time, when first Woo Jeong-Yeong and then Jonathan Schmid breached the Dortmund defence in three chaotic minutes.
Youssoufa Moukoko’s 76th-minute goal was too little too late for Die Scwrarzgelben who drop to sixth place, 16 points behind the leaders, and in serious danger of missing out on a top-four place.
With some of the best young talent in Europe at his disposal, Erling Braut Haaland, Gio Reyna and Jadon Sancho, interim head coach Edin Terzic must find a way to recalibrate a side which is in danger of drifting even further from the summit.
Schalke look doomed
No-one really expected bottom club Schalke 04 to beat Red Bull, but the outcome was depressingly familiar for the North Rhine fans. Head coach Christian Gross needs to perform a miracle.
The club was dominant in the 1930’s and 1950’s, winning seven league titles, but in recent times their ambitions have been more modest and a repeat of last term’s 12th placed finish would have been a fair success.
But even that seems a distant hope now, as the club sits in bottom place, with a solitary win from 20 games and nine points behind the play-off place.
It isn’t quite over yet, but time is fast running out.
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