Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen Tips: Eye-catching guests hard to ignore

Monday night football comes from North Germany as a struggling Bremen side welcome an exciting Leverkusen outfit.

It’s been a season of disappointment for the Green-Whites who look in grave danger of an exit from the top tier for the first time since in almost 40 years. They currently sit second from bottom – five points adrift of 16th placed Düsseldorf. If they can finish in 16th it gives them a chance of survival with that position qualifying them for a relegation play off with the third-placed team in the division below.

Including this game, the hosts do have two games in-hand on the majority of those around them which could prove crucial. Florian Kohfeldt needs his side to step up and perform much better than they have so far though, Bremen have conceded the most goals in the league and their shoddy defence has stunted any kind of consistency with their only back-to-back wins coming in September.

Centre-halves Niklas Moisander and Omer Toprak have failed to convince, despite their experience. Milos Veljkovic has been way off it in the middle of the park whilst none of their four strikers have managed to get consistent game time. They’ll be after some form of positive consistency in team lineups and performances for the remainder of the season and perhaps the pressure of the crowd being taken away could in fact help them.

One bright spot for the Riversiders has been the form of Kosovan international Milot Rashica. The versatile winger has been the point of danger for all Werder’s opposition with his pace, direct running, creative and finishing abilities. It’s no wonder the likes of Leipzig and Liverpool have been battling for his signature as he’s still likely to have not hit his peak. If the hosts are to do anything here then Rashica is likely to be at the heart of it.

Looking at Leverkusen they will have been devastated at the league being brought to a halt as they’d been on fire with 11 wins out of their last 13 games in all competitions. They’ve coped admirably without the influential Kevin Volland and young starlet Kai Havertz has filled the void admirably taking on a slightly different role.

It’s fair to say that Die Werkself aren’t short of options at the top of the pitch. It’s a fluid formation when going forward and gaffer Peter Bosz has the likes of Moussa Diaby, Lucas Alario, Leon Bailey, Paulinho, Nedim Amiri and Kerim Demirbay to call upon. Bosz has been a revelation at the BayArena with his possession-based approach baring fruit. It would be remiss if me not to mention the influence that new centre half Edmond Tapsoba has had on this side.

Signed from Vitoria Guimaraes, Tapsoba is your modern day centre half. He prefers playing in a three and the keep ball under Bosz also plays into his hands with the Burkina Faso international averaging over 100 passes per-game. He brings a calmness to the backline and at just 21 years of age still there’s still a lot more to come.

It’s hard to make an argument against the visitors here. Bremen are deservedly down there, the underlying data shows that and Leverkusen should have the requisite quality to see them off. It also has to be mentioned that the hosts were one of the last teams back to training and that lack of fitness could come back to bite them, especially in the second half.

What’s more, I think the addition of an extra two substitutes to be allowed on the pitch will fall into the away sides hands here, they have strong squad options and that’s only going to help them in the run-in.

The money has come for Leverkusen and I see why, I can’t quite put them up at 4/6 but I’m happy to boost that to even-money by throwing Over 1 Goal into the mix along with the away win using Bet365’s BetBuilder.

Thirteen of Leverkusen’s 14 wins have seen two or more goals in them whereas 12/14 Bremen losses have seen two or more goals.