SC Paderborn 07 will hope to earn their first win in eight games when they host TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, a team that were also struggling for form on Saturday.
Paderborn who are stuck at the root of the table, six points away from moving out of the automatic relegation zone and a further 10 points from drifting out of the relegation play off- spot. They last experienced a victory on the 25th January when they beat Sport- Club Freiburg 2-0 away from home.
On the other hand, Hoffenheim, who are in ninth position; only four points adrift of a Europa League spot, are in bad form themselves, as they have not picked up a win in six games with their last victory coming at the start of February - when they surprisingly beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-1.
Since then, Die Kraichgauer have been smashed 6-0 by top of the table Bayern Munich and last time out, they suffered a 3-0 humiliating defeat at home to Hertha Berlin, thanks to an own goal by Kevin Akpoguma and strikes by Vedad Ibisevic and Matheus Cunha.
Team News
For Paderbon, forward Sven Michel, centre backs Luca Kilian and Sebastian Schonlau missed training this week due to injuries, but manager Steffen Baumgart hopes that the latter, who is the club’s captain, will at least be in the squad for Saturday, if not the starting 11.
Whereas Hoffenheim have limited options up front as top scorer Andrej Kamaric, and forwards Ihlas Bebou and Sargis Adamyan are injury doubts, while Munes Dabbur may be unavailable due to a lack of match fitness.
Consequently, this means that Jacob Brunn Larsen who was brought in for €10 million from Borussia Dortmund in January and Maximillian Beier, a striker who has impressed for the under 19's team but has failed to make a first team appereance as of yet, are the only fully fit Hoffenheim forwards ahead of Saturday's fixture.
Last time they faced each other
In the reverse fixture in the Bundesliga, Hoffenheim sailed away to a comfortable 3-0 victory at the PreZero Arena thanks to goals inside the first 26 minutes by Robert Skov, Pavel Kadarabek and Jurgen Locadia.
Therefore, after this disappointing result, Paderborn will be looking for redemption, and it is a game that they really need to earn three points in if they want a good chance of achieving survival in the division, as there only eight games in the season remaining.
Although, Hoffenheim themselves will be disappointed if they don’t get anything other than three points against a team that have only won four games this season.
Furthermore, Schreuder’s side will want to get themselves out of the poor run of form that they currently find themselves in, especially if they want to make a push for a Europa League spot come the end of the season.