Wolfsburg vs Nurnberg Predictions

Last weekend’s 4-1 win away to Hoffenheim has brought Wolfsburg back within two points of the top six going into the final three games of the season – a win on Saturday would strengthen their unlikely efforts for a top-four finish too. Coach Bruno Labbadia, who has now confirmed he will be departing the club in May, would no doubt like to leave having achieved that much, and there’s arguably no better opportunity to make progress towards that than with a game at home to relegation-fighting Nurnberg.

Nurnberg won’t have enjoyed their last meeting with Wolfsburg, which ended in a 2-0 defeat, and though they picked up a shock point at home to Bayern Munich last weekend, not a lot has changed since the two last met. Der Club have won just one of their last 25 matches (W1 D8 L16) – that being a 3-0 home win over Augsburg at the end of March – and what’s worse is that they’ve earned just three points in total on the road this season (D3 L12). Survival can now only be achieved by catching up the five-point gap to Stuttgart and then winning the relegation play-off – a tough ask.

With that in mind, we feel backing Wolfsburg to get the win looks a solid bet. Wolfsburg’s form might not look that great at first glance, but it must be noted that each of their three most recent defeats have come away to the top three – a 6-0 defeat at Bayern and 2-0 defeats at Dortmund and Leipzig. When you exclude those difficult fixtures, Wolfsburg haven’t lost a game since February, winning six and drawing three of the remaining nine (W6 D3). Notably, Wolfsburg have also won each of their last four home outings against bottom half sides as well.

You could make an argument and say that Nurnberg have been a fairly stubborn side to beat over the past few weeks – they have lost just one of their last five after all (W1 D3 L1) – but their track record against Wolfsburg is also fairly poor – Nurnberg have won just one of the last  eight against the Wolves (W1 D3 L4). Nurnberg have also lost every away game to each of the other top half sides so you have to state the obvious and say that they simply don’t fare well on the road to stronger opposition. It’s hard, therefore, to see past the hosts here. Our prediction: 2-1 Wolfsburg.