Nurnberg vs Borussia Dortmund Predictions

The Bundesliga continues to be an unforgiving league as far as Nurnberg are concerned. Monday’s hosts, who currently sit looking up at each of the other 17 top-flight teams, are now without a win in 15 league games. They did earn the slightest bit of respite when holding Bremen to a draw a fortnight ago, but they were unable to take a step in the right direction last time out when losing by two goals to nil away at Hannover.

In all honesty, it’s tough to put a positive spin on Nurnberg’s current predicament. For once they did limit a side to not so many chances when drawing 1-1 with Bremen, but they were once again woeful going forward, while they struggled at both ends of the pitch against Hannover last time out.

One thing that can be said for Monday’s hosts is that they’ve given a lot less away at home than they have on the road. In fact, some of their recent defensive efforts at home haven’t been too bad at all. Even at Max-Morlock-Stadion, they struggle massively to get going offensively, but they have frustrated teams a lot more in front of a home crowd, as their last five expected-goals against figures of 0.96, 1.65, 0.55, 0.88 and 0.92 suggest. Moreover, they’re surrendering an average of just 1.03 expected goals at home this season, which is far from poor.

As the betting suggests, Dortmund should have more than enough quality to come out of this match with all three points, though if we look at their overall efforts on the road this season and consider them in conjunction with the fact that Nurnberg have kept things reasonably tight at home of late, then it’s easy to see the visitors winning far less convincingly than the pre-match prices would suggest.

Dortmund, whose attacking powers are below what they can be at present thanks to both Marco Reus and Paco Alcacer being out injured, have only won one of their last three away matches, while they haven’t scored more than a single goal on the road since beating Schalke back in early December. Furthermore, Dortmund are averaging just 1.19 expected goals for away from home during the current campaign, which doesn’t exactly tell us that they’ve been creating scoring opportunities at will.

At the prices, the bet that stands out is ‘Dortmund to Win & Under 3.5 Goals’. Quite simply, Nurnberg, who’ve scored just three goals in their last six at home, lack the offensive quality to really hurt Dortmund, but they can retain some dignity. The visitors have more than enough quality to come through, but they shouldn’t be expected to do so in high-scoring fashion, especially since two of their most influential attacking players are missing at present. What’s more, as narrow victories over Leipzig, Schalke, Mainz and Wolfsburg suggest, the visitors have made something of a habit of grinding out wins without going mad on the road.