Leverkusen vs. St. Pauli preview: Defending champs hope to keep up momentum without Schick

Leverkusen

The defending league and cup champs are riding high after Tuesday’s DFB Pokal victory over Bayern handed them their fourth consecutive victory on-the-bounce. Dumping Bayern out of the domestic certainly constituted a major statement, but Germany’s red company team remain seven points behind the German giants in the league table. Should Xabi Alonso’s Werkself wish to remain part of the title-race discussion, they must absolutely secure all three points here. 

Three of Leverkusen’s five league draws this season have come against opponents from the bottom third of the table. The champions could only take one point from the Bundesliga’s other promoted side, Holstein Kiel, on match-day six. Bayer also dropped points against 12th-placed Bremen and last-placed Bochum. Though the hosts certainly remain heavy favorites, underwhelming performances against lower-table sides this season must be taken into account. 

Team news:

With lead-striker Patrik Schick a confirmed out, Xabi has listed the prematurely recovered Martin Terrier as an option to start up front. Florian Wirtz could also work alone up top as either a true or false nine. Most German press sources – including Leverkusen correspondent Stephan van Nocks of Kicker Magazine – seem to think that Pokal hero Nathan Tella receive his long awaited chance to spearhead the attack. 

St. Pauli

Alexander Blessin’s Kiezkicker finally got an enormous monkey off their back last weekend when they scored their first home goal of the season. As it turned out the Hamburg-based side added managed to put three past fellow Bundesliga newcomers Holstein Kiel at the Millerntor. St. Pauli’s third win of the current campaign lifted them out of the relegation zone. Blessin declared himself particularly pleased with attacker Dapo Afolayan, who recorded two assists in the victory. 

St. Pauli keeper Nikola Vasilj is also riding high after saving his second penalty of the season last week. The Bosnian #1 gave his team a big boost by holding a spot kick in the match-day five upset win over Freiburg. Vasilj did quite a bit for his colleagues in narrow losses to other top-four sides Bayern and Dortmund earlier this season. Blessin made clear at his his pre-match presser that he believed his lads could furnish another respectable performance against last year’s champs. 

Team news:

There seems to be no reason for Blessin to alter his previous XI. There had been some hope during the week that Estonian defender Karol Mets might be ready to return in time for the fixture, but the 31-year-old needs more time to recover from his knee injury. The attacking trident of Afolayan, Johannes Eggestein, and Morgan Guilavogui will hope to build on their previous performance.