Union Berlin to secure three points at Alte Forsterei
TEAM NEWS
Union Berlin have signed Florian Hubner and Manuel Schmidebach from Hannover, Joshua Mees from Jahn Regensburg, Rafal Gikiewicz from Freiburg, Ken Reichel from Braunschweig, Christopher Lenz from Union Berlin and Eroll Zejnullahu from Sandhausen. However, they have lost important key players, including Steven Skrzybski, Kristian Pedersen, Philipp Hosiner, Stephan Furstner, Dennis Daube, Daniel Mesenholer and Toni Leistner. In addition, Marc Torrejon, Fabian Schonheim and Sebastian Polter won't be ready for the season opener.
Aue have had a busy transfer window, bringing in Jan Hochscheidt and Steve Breitkreutz from Braunschweig, Filip Kusic from Cologne, Rom Baumgart from Chemnitz and Robert Herrmann from Sandhausen. Nevertheless, they have lost more quality than they signed so far because key players like Pascal Kopke and Sebastian Hertner have left the club. Furthermore, they have to deal without Steve Breitkreuz who has suffered a knee injury.
Union Berlin
Suspended: None
Doubtful: None
Injured/unavailable: Marc Torrejon (muscle), Fabian Schonheim (knee), Sebastian Polter (Achilles)
Aue
Suspended: None
Doubtful: None
Injured/unavailable: Steve Breitkreuz (knee)
MATCH PREVIEW
MAIN PREDICTION: HOME WIN
Union Berlin were talking anout promotion at the start of last season but had only an average campaign, finishing in eighth place with 12 wins, 11 draws and 11 defeats. They were disappointed about the outcome of last term and made a lot of changes to their squad. New coach Urs Fischer has plenty of young talented players at his disposal, but Union Berlin will be missing the departed Steven Skrzybski, who proved one of their most promising stars last season. Union Berlin are known for their great home support and lost only three time on their own ground last season (seven wins, seven draws). They should be very hard to beat at Alte Forsterei this season again.
Aue were desperately poor last season, finishing third from bottom with just 40 points from 34 games. However, they managed to win their playoff games against Karlsruhe 3-1 on aggregate to avoid relegation. Nevertheless, they have to do without a lot of key players from last season who have all left for pastures anew. Unknown Daniel Meyer is the new boss in the dugout and he has plenty of work to do with a lot of changes in squad, although he might have felt that he had to do something drastic in order to bring about improvement. Aue look like one of the relegation candidates this season, but they had a decent pre-season with three wins and a draw.
Union Berlin are the stronger side here and they have home advantage. Their players should be physically or mentally better prepared for the new campaign than Aue’s. I predict a home win.
SECOND PREDICTION: CORRECT SCORE – 1-0
Two of Union Berlin's last three league wins were secured via 1-0 scorelines while Aue lost their last league outing by the same result. With two of their last three meetings seeing one or no goal, I'm going for the same outcome here.
HEAD TO HEAD
When these two last squared off in March, the match finished goalless. However, Union Berlin have the edge on home soil with five wins, two draws and two defeats.
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