Bochum vs. Eintracht Frankfurt preview: Can die Adler remain unbeaten?
Eintracht Frankfurt will be looking to continue their unbeaten start to the season when they face Bochum on Saturday evening.
| Kevin Trapp. | Photo: Sven Mandel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Bochum
After finishing just two points above the bottom three last term, Bochum are seemingly set for another nervy season after failing to win any of their opening three league games. The Bundesliga campaign began in disastrous fashion, with their away fixture against Stuttgart resulting in a demoralising 5-0 defeat.
Bochum managed to restore a sense of belief on matchday two, as they took a point off Borussia Dortmund courtesy of a 1-1 draw. They managed to pick up another point in their most recent outing against Augsburg, coming from behind on two occasions thanks to a Takuma Asano brace.
While Bochum will be pleased to have avoided defeat in their last two matches, they will be wary of repeating last season’s wait for a victory. Bochum collected just one point from their opening nine games, before they claimed their first league win of the 2022-23 season. They will be able to draw inspiration from the fact that their first win of last term took place against Saturday’s opponents. On that occasion, they cruised to a 3-0 home victory against Frankfurt, and they will be desperate to repeat that result this weekend.
Team News
Mohammed Tolba and Michael Esser are ruled out with knee injuries, while Lys Mousset and Jordi Osei-Tutu are also set to miss Saturday's contest.
Eintracht Frankfurt
Frankfurt have effectively balanced three competitions to make an unbeaten start to the 2023-24 campaign. After cruising through the first round of the DFB-Pokal, die Adler got their league campaign up and running with a narrow win over newly-promoted Darmstadt.
They managed to successfully negotiate a Europa Conference League qualifying tie against Levski Sofia, with the two legs taking place either side of a 1-1 draw against Mainz. They repeated that scoreline in their final game before the international break against Köln, with Nils Nkounkou equalising in the 87th minute to rescue a point for die Adler.
Including last season, Frankfurt are now unbeaten in six league matches, but their away form is far from encouraging. They have failed to win any of their previous 12 Bundesliga matches (D6, L6) since beating Augsburg 2-1 in November. They are currently experiencing a longer wait for an away Bundesliga clean sheet, with a goalless draw against RB Leipzig in March 2022 representing the last time they recorded a shutout on their travels in the top flight.
Team News
Dino Toppmöller is expected to be without the services of Lucas Alario and Kristijan Jakic.