Schalke 04 vs Darmstadt 98: Preview and Prediction

Schalke 04 vs Darmstadt 98
German Bundesliga
Date: Sunday 27th November, 2016
Kick-off: 14:30 UK
Venue: VELTINS-Arena, Gelsenkirchen.

Schalke 04 seem to be a completely different team from the one we had the opportunity to watch at the start of the season in Bundesliga. The owners did not lose the patience with Markus Weinzierl after a horrendous start of the new campaign, which paid off for them as the team has been playing fantastic lately. Schalke 04 have taken six wins in last seven matches which allowed them to escape the bottom of the league standings.

They will have a very nice opportunity to back up the last weekend’s away win at Wolfsburg and get even closer to the top part of the table since they will be hosting struggling Darmstadt 98 in the first match of the day on Sunday at their VELTINS-Arena. Nabil Bentaleb has been the team’s best player, bagging the total of four goals so far in the season.

Darmstadt 98 are in a terrible run of four consecutive defeats in all competitions. The poor streak started with the embarrassing elimination from DFB Pokal when they lost to Astoria Walldorf with 1 -0. The team led by Norbert Meier then lost to RB Leipzig with 0-2 on home ground, to Bayer Leverkusen with 3-2 at BayArena and finally to one of the main rivals in the likely battle for avoiding relegation, Ingolstadt in the last round with 0-1 on home court.

Schalke 04 vs Darmstadt 98: Head-to-Head Stats

Schalke 04 have been more than dominant in head to head encounters as they have won four out of five matches the teams played so far. Interestingly, Darmstadt 98 managed to pull out a 1 – 1 draw in the last visit to VELTINS-Arena, but we certainly doubt they will manage to repeat the same success this Sunday because Schalke 04 have been red hot lately!

Schalke 04 vs Darmstadt 98: Prediction

Home win is the banker of the round and we would be shocked to see any other scenario. To get the higher odds, we are going to back the hosts to win with at least two goals difference, which is priced up at 11/10!

Nabil Bentaleb is one of the main options up front for Markus Weinzierl, in the absence of Huntelaar and Embolo, who are both injured, so you might consider backing the Algerian winger to score anytime at 13/5!