Bayer Leverkusen v Hertha Berlin
15:00
Leverkusen had a poor first half of the season as they’re only 9th and managed just one win in their last six. They kept just three clean sheets in their 16 games, while they managed to score more than once in just six of these. Hertha, conversely, are up in 3rd despite losing two of their last three at the end of last year.
Leverkusen have won just one of their last five at home and that was against bottom of the league Darmstadt, while they lost their last home game against Ingolstadt, who are currently 17th. With that in mind, they look far too short at 1.75 and we’d need to see some signs of a return to form before backing them at that price against a team that has nine more points than them.
Part of the reason for that price is the fact that Hertha have managed just two away wins this term, although they have already travelled to the rest of the top-six, drawing at Dortmund and Eintracht. However, they’ll be without Salomon Kalou and Form Lab Black Players tells us that Hertha have won half the 38 games Kalou has started since the start of last season, averaging 1.4 goals across these, but they lost half of the 12 games he didn’t line up over that period, failing to score in each of those defeats and averaging only 1.1 goals per game overall. As such they might struggle to get the win, but we think they can pick up a point, so we’re backing the draw.
