German Bundesliga
2011-04-10 - Bayer Leverkusen vs St.Pauli
A Sports Betting Pick by Niko
Football ; Germany : Bundesliga
Bay Arena
Sunday,10th April 2011 – kickoff 17:30
Bayer Leverkusen
Bayern Leverkusen are sitting comfortable at the second place with 58 points, seven above Bayern Munich, and they are slowly getting closer to Borussia Dortmund being just seven points behind with six matches to go.
Bayer Leverkusen are facing St.Pauli in best possible time and they really need three points here, because in the next round they will play against Bayern in Munich in a crucial match that will clarify the picture about who will play directly in the Champions League next season.
Although the home form of Bayer Leverkusen with seven wins, four draws and three losses has been worse than their away form where they are superb, they should not have big problems against St.Pauli whom they narrowly beat 1-0 in the first match this season.
Good news for coach Jupp Heynckess is that besides the midfielder Renato Augusto who is still in rehab, all other players are fit to play, although there is also a question mark over fitness of Manuel Friedrich, but he should be involved in the squad.
Probable Bayer Leverkusen line-up :
Balitsch, Schwaab, Reinartz, Kadlec,
Vidal, Rolfes,
Sam, Ballack, Barnetta,
Derdiyok
St.Pauli
St.Pauli are not a material for the 1.Bundesliga and i am almost certain that they will be the second team besides Borussia M`Gladbach that will get relegated in the lower division after spending just one season in the German top flight.
St.Pauli were really unfortunate this season with injuries and at one point they were without seven defenders, most of them are still injured, and the team does not have adequate replacements at the bench. That is probably part of the reasons why St.Pauli constantly are falling down at the Bundesliga table, although they had a pretty good restart in January. Currently they are in a negative series of six straight losses and that series will probably be extended with another loss in Leverkusen.
Coach Holger Stanislawski once again has huge worries selecting his squad as the defenders Bastian Oczipka, Carlos Zambrano, Fabio Morena, Moritz Volz and Carsten Rothenbach are all out for the whole remainder of the season. Also another blow for the team is that two players- Jan-Philipp Kalla and Fin Bartels had both received red cards in the last week`s match against Schalke 04 and are suspended for this match.
Gerald Asamoah will be the only striker, but he is far from the form he once was, and i really doubt that he can do something more in this match, as the coach Stanislawski has pointed at a press conference that he will demand from his midfielders to take more defensive role in this match. That pretty much sums it up how the team feels about this away match.
Probable St.Pauli line-up :
Lechner, Thorandt, Eger, Gunesch,
Boll, M. Lehmann,
Bruns, Takyi, M. Kruse,
Asamoah
The Betting Verdict
A very interesting fact is that St.Pauli have a positive record of five wins, four draws and four losses against Bayer Leverkusen, but even more interesting is that none of their five wins came in Leverkusen.
St.Pauli travels to Leverkusen with only one mission and one goal-to defend only. They will probably park the bus in front of the goal hoping to avoid defeat, but i really can not see how they will manage with the constant attacking pressure by Bayer Leverkusen throughout the whole match.
If Bayer Leverkusen scores early, then they will probably hammer St.Pauli, and if not, they might struggle and get a bit nervous, but either way i think that this match should end in a fairly easy victory for Bayer Leverkusen.
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Bayer Leverkusen-St.Pauli 3-0
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take the Home win for Bayer Leverkusen for a price of 1.25 at Interwetten as a part of your accumulator bets
