Roger Schmidt begins the second season of his Bayer Leverkusen revolution this weekend with the visit of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim to the BayArena, hoping to maintain their impressive home form from last season.

Wolfsburg were the only side to take away all three points from Leverkusen last season in their crazy 5-4 victory back in February, with Hoffenheim beaten 2-0 on their last visit to the BayArena.

That was one of nine away defeats Markus Gisdol’s men suffered on the road last season, and will hope to improve on their paltry three away wins in 2014/15.

TSG will be hoping that despite the loss of Roberto Firmino, the acquisitions funded by the Brazilian’s £29m departure to Liverpool (namely the trio of Basel’s highly rated defender Fabian Schär, Pavel Kaderábek and Freiburg winger Jonathan Schmid) will give the team real strength in depth both in defence and attack.

Leverkusen themselves will look different. Long-serving pair Gonzalo Castro and Simon Rolfes may have departed, the former to Borussia Dortmund and the latter hanging up his boots, but the return of Christoph Kramer from his two-year loan spell at Gladbach and the purchase of Charles Aranguiz give Schmidt real options in the midfield.

Admir Mehmedi from relegated Freiburg replaced Josip Drmic, who moved to Gladbach, and is an interesting signing, whereas Jonathan Tah fills the gap after Emir Spahic’s release after the steward assault debacle.

Predicted line-ups

Leverkusen (4-2-3-1): Bernd Leno, Roberto Hilbert, Jonathan Tah, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Wendell, Christoph Kramer, Lars Bender, Son Heung-Min, Hakan Calhanoglu, Karim Bellarabi, Stefan Kießling

Hoffenheim (4-2-3-1): Oliver Baumann, Pavel Kaderábek, Niklas Süle, Fabian Schär, Jin-Su Kim, Pirmin Schwegler, Eugen Polanski, Jonathan Schmid, Kevin Volland, Steven Zuber, Mark Uth

Key Players

Stefan Kießling will hope to continue his impressive record against the visitors, having scored six goals in his last five games against Hoffenheim, whilst Mark Uth will hope to get off to a flying start after his move from Heerenveen in the summer.

Last meeting

Leverkusen extinguished Hoffenheim’s unlikely European hopes last May when they defeated them 2-0 at the BayArena. Calhanoglu scored yet another freekick to open the scoring, and then set up Kießling for the decisive second.

That followed their 1-0 away at the Rhein-Neckar Arena in December, with Kießling scoring the only goal of the game.

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