Matchday nine in the Bundesliga gets underway on Friday evening with Borussia Monchengladbach hosting Eintracht Frankfurt under the lights at the beautiful Borussia-Park stadium, looking to bounce back after defeat last weekend.

Foals need a lift

Andre Schubert's men fell to a 2-0 defeat to Bayern Munich last weekend in a game that the team failed to get going at all which was worrying to see.

The defeat to Bayern has left the team 10th in the table but they will take heart from the fact they qualified for the next round of the DFB Pokal by defeating VfB Stuttgart 2-0 at home on Tuesday night.

Eagles flying high

On the other hand, Niko Kovac's side have started to turn their season round with positive results in their last three games. Frankfurt also qualified for the next round of the DFB Pokal on Tuesday night when they defeated FC Ingolstadt 04 4-1 on penalties.

Before this they won 3-0 away at Hamburger SV last weekend and before that they  managed to come back to draw 2-2 with Bayern at home despite being down to ten men.

This good form has seen the team move up to seventh in the table, three points ahead of their hosts ahead of this weekend's game and they will be confident that they can keep their good run going.

Schubert's men were resounding winners the last time the side's met

The problem though that the Eagles face though is that they were defeated 3-0 at the same venue last season. The foals goalscorers that day were Lars Stindl, Raffael and Mahmoud Dahoud and the hosts will be looking to produce that kind of result once again this weekend.

Dahoud celebrates scoring the hosts third goal the last time the two sides met | Photo: Getty Images
Dahoud celebrates scoring the hosts third goal the last time the two sides met | Photo: Mika Volkmann / Getty Images

Team news

In terms of injuries ahead of the game, the hosts will once again be without centre forward Raffael due to a muscular problem. Josip Drmic, Thorgan Hazard and Ibrahima Traoré all remain out due to injury.

There are also doubts over the fitness of centre backs Alvaro Dominguez, Mamadou Doucare and Andreas Christensen which leaves Schubert with some selection problems ahead of the game.

The Eagles are also without some key players for the game. Midfielder Marc Stendera remains out until March while Marco Russ, Bamba Anderson and Guillermo Varela are also out of the game with injuries. Szabolcs Huszti is available again though after serving his one game suspension in the last game for his sending off against Bayern.

Predicted line-ups

Borussia Monchengladbach: (4-2-3-1) Sommer; Jantschke, Vestergaard, Elvedi, Strobl; Kramer, Johnson, Wendt, Dahoud, Stindl; Hahn.

Eintracht Frankfurt: (4-3-2-1) Hradecky; Hector, Abraham, Vallejo, Chandler;  Mascarell, Huszti, Oczipka; Fabian, Gacinovic; Hrgota.

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