Nurnberg vs SC Freiburg Predictions

Nurnburg’s 2-0 defeat away to Borussia Monchengladbach on Tuesday – their ninth of the season (W2 D5 L9) – was a result that saw them fall to the bottom of the Bundesliga table. Coach Kollner’s men have taken just three points from their last ten Bundesliga outings too (D3 L7) – a league-low – and an injury to Hanno Behrens – top scorer in their 17/18 promotion winning season – has done them no favours as one of the weaker offences in the league. Blanks in each of their last three matches raises even more questions about ‘where are goals going to come from?’… and that’s before the even bigger question of ‘how are we going to stop conceding?’.

It’s been a strange few weeks for Freiburg. They beat an in-form RB Leipzig at home (3-0) – a result which ended their four-game winless run (D2 L2) – before plummeting back to reality with an uninspiring 2-0 defeat away to Fortuna Dusseldorf last weekend. A mid-week draw at home to Hannover must, therefore, have left coach Christian Streich scratching his head. He has said before that his side has “lacked aggression and stability at times” and Wednesday’s display was another that confirmed his prior criticism, and ultimately their unpredictability. Freiburg do at least have 17/18 top scorer Nils Petersen (15 goals in 32 appearances last season) back amongst their ranks. He needs just one more goal to become Freiburg’s all-time leading Bundesliga scorer.

Going off the above, we do feel the angle for this game is in the under 2.5 goals market. First off, recent results from both sides have been largely low scoring – under 2.5 goals were scored in three of Nurnberg’s last four outings and four of Freiburg’s last five – and in the odd case when one of their games has been high-scoring, it’s often not been from their own doing. Nurnberg, for example, have the worst defensive record in the Bundesliga, and they’ve conceded at least two goals in six of their last seven league matches. However, it would be unreasonable to expect that Freiburg’s offense would be able to replicate those numbers. The South Germans have scored more than one goal in just one of their last seven Bundesliga outings… and that came on their own turf.

Away from home, Freiburg have been one of the worst sides in the German top flight. Streich’s men have won just one of their seven away days (W1 D2 L4) so far, scoring just seven goals in the process, an average of one per game. Notably, according to xG (expected goals), they are right where they should be in the away form table too, meaning these numbers accurately reflect how poor they’ve been on their travels. Nurnberg themselves haven’t been too sharp either as of late though. They’ve failed to score in each of their last three Bundesliga outings – admittedly, against tricky opponents in Bayern, Gladbach and a resurgent Wolfsburg – which makes it difficult to see them taking advantage of Freiburg’s poor away form. From that, we like the sound of this to end deadlocked. Our prediction: a 1-1 draw.