Bayern Munich vs Eintracht Frankfurt

Bayern Munich and Eintracht Frankfurt are set to trade tackles in a blockbuster top-four Bundesliga six-pointer at the Allianz Arena.

Bayern Munich had to thank Joshua Kimmich’s last-gasp long-range stunner for rescuing a point in an underwhelming 1-1 home draw against Koln in midweek Bundesliga action. Julian Nagelsmann’s men have opened the new calendar year with back-to-back league stalemates and could go winless in their first three top-flight games of a new year for the first time since 2007. Ominously for Nagelsmann, that feat led to Felix Magath’s sacking. Desperate to avoid Magath’s fate, the ‘Bavarians’ boss can draw confidence from Bayern’s 100% unbeaten eight-game home start to the 2022/23 Bundesliga season (W5, D3). But the abovementioned draw against Koln knocked the record-time champions down from a four-match winning home league run.

With only five points separating fourth-placed Eintracht Frankfurt and table-topping Bayern, the visitors’ unlikely win in Munich would blow the Bundesliga title race wide open. However, ‘Die Adler’ found themselves on the receiving end of a disastrous 6-1 scoreline in the reverse fixture in August, marking their second consecutive league defeat to Bayern. On a more positive note, Oliver Glasner’s charges have gone unbeaten on four straight Bundesliga travels (W2, D2) since an abysmal 3-0 loss at bottom-half Bochum in October. No strangers to defying the odds, Frankfurt have only lost one of the four Bundesliga encounters they’ve started as pre-match underdogs this season at any venue (W3, D1). Speaking of the visitors’ ever-growing confidence, their decent 31 points tally stands as their best-ever at the halfway stage of a Bundesliga season in a three-point-per-win era.