Bochum vs Greuther Fürth preview
Bochum will welcome Greuther Fürth to the Vonovia Ruhrstadion on Saturday with the hosts looking to bounce back following their DFB-Pokal exit in midweek.
Bochum
Bochum reside in 11th place, with six points separating them from the relegation playoff spot. Although clear of danger at the moment, Bochum cannot afford to rest on their laurels.
They held out for 82 minutes against RB Leipzig last weekend before Christopher Nkunku found a way through the Bochum defence. They had the chance to respond in midweek, when they played host to Freiburg in the quarter-finals of the Pokal. Sebastian Polter cancelled out Nils Petersen's opener to take the tie to extra time, but with penalties looming, Roland Sallai struck in the 120th minute to quash Bochum's cup dreams.
Thomas Reis now has the difficult task of picking up his players from a demoralising defeat. They do, however, usually fare well on home turf, having collected 21 of their 29 points this season from home contests.
Jurgen Locadia picked up an injury in the cup defeat, and is expected to miss Saturday's contest, with Simon Zoller also ruled out.
Greuther Fürth
Although they still sit nine points adrift of the relegation playoff place, Fürth have shown real fight in recent games, picking up 13 points from their last ten league matches.
Despite enjoying promising results, Fürth still remain rock bottom of the Bundesliga table as they head towards an immediate return to the second tier. However, if they are going to go down, then Stefan Leitl's side are going to go down swinging.
One area where Fürth have failed to improve is their away form, having collected just one point from their 12 away games. Leitl has witnessed his team concede an eyewatering 44 away goals this term, with such a leaky defence preventing them from claiming an away victory.
With Fürth aiming to claim their first away win of the season, they will be looking towards top scorer Branimir Hrgota for inspiration. Gideon Jung, meanwhile, will be unable to feature with a knee injury keeping him out.