Eintracht Frankfurt vs Hannover 96 Predictions

Eintracht Frankfurt have had a bumpy few weeks and Wednesday’s 3-1 defeat in Monchengladbach marked their fourth consecutive league match without a win. Eintracht have taken three points in at least one match in September though, having beaten French outfit Marseille in the Europa League just over a week back. Coach Adi Hutter has some big decisions to make here both in terms of attack and defence. On the negative side, center backs Timothy Chandler and Carlos Salcedo remain missing from Eintracht’s back line (see team news), but on the positive side, Croatian World Cup star Ante Rebic is an option after easing his way back into competitive football with two appearances off the bench over the last week – he even scored Frankfurt’s consolation goal in the defeat to Gladbach. Rebic is one of their most dangerous assets and should he start you can expect Frankfurt’s attacking numbers to improve.

Another game, another defeat for Hannover 96. After Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat at home to Hoffenheim, Andre Breitenreiter’s men are now five matches without a win (D2 L3). Excluding their defeat against Nurnberg last weekend though, where Miiko Albornoz’s 29th minute red card had them on the back foot from the early stages, you’d have to say Hannover have been showing signs of promise over a VERY tough set of opening fixtures – for example, by holding the in-form Dortmund to a scoreless draw or by scoring two away to RB Leipzig in a 3-2 defeat. Hannover’s star man Niclas Fullkrug (14 goals) – the third highest scoring Bundesliga player in the 17/18 season – now has two goals under his belt for the 18/19 campaign and has scored a single goal in five of his last eight outings. Not bad at all.

So what should we look for betting-wise in this match? For us, even though these are two of the more under-performing sides in the Bundesliga, expecting goals at both ends looks reasonable. From the visitors’ side, Frankfurt have failed to keep a clean sheet in seven of their eight competitive outings so far in the 18/19 campaign (five Bundesliga, one DFB Pokal, one Europa League and one German Super Cup outing) and they’ve scored three goals from their three away matches against largely similar strength opposition. In fact, when looking back, Hannover have scored at least one goal in 16 of their 20 Bundesliga away matches since their return to the top flight in 2017. However, Hannover’s weakness on the road has been in their inability to keep goals out, conceding at least one goal in all but one of these (W2 D7 L11). Simply put, it’s their defense, not their offense, that often costs them and Frankfurt should be able to take advantage of this.

Whether or not Frankfurt can get a result is the next logical question. Hannover have only been worse off at this stage of a season in one of their last eight Bundesliga campaigns and they are also winless in 15 Bundesliga away games (D5 L10) before this. However, the Eagles are going through a bit of a rough patch themselves too, winning just 2 of their last 12 Bundesliga matches (W2 D2 L8). Against a leaky Hannover back-line, you’d have to fancy them for at least a goal, but Frankfurt’s weak underlying numbers – no team has had fewer shots on goal than the Eagles (39) – means that you can’t really expect them to be too dominant here. Frankfurt do have a good track record against Hannover (see head-to-head), but going off more recent form, this could be a closer affair than you’d think. Our prediction: a 1-1 draw.