By Tomi Rantanen

Ribery return imminent

Pep Guardiola’s title winning squad has been riddled with injuries this season and received yet another blow when Thiago Alcantara was reported needing another surgery, which will sideline the playmaking midfielder for additional month. Even with all the injuries, Bayern seems unstoppable at the moment and is yet to lose a match. Remarkably the Bavarians have only conceded twice in seven matches, while averaging more than two goals scored.

AccuScore has 4-star picks for this match: Bundesliga Expert Betting Picks

Bayern’s season looks to be continuing on a positive note, with Franck Ribery returning to match fitness sooner rather than later and yet providing more firepower in the offence. With AccuScore match engine we can simulate the effect Ribery will (or will not) have in the result against Bremen on Saturday. Werder Bremen have had their own injury worries, but are likely to field most of the first-choice players. The only bigger worry might be the 1st goalkeeper, Raphael Wolf, who has been suffering from back injury and is questionable for the weekend. Backups for Wolf are inexperienced Austrian Richard Strebinger and 18-year-old Germany U19 keeper Raif Husic. With attacking prowess of Bayern it will be a sweaty afternoon for the kids.



As we can see, the AccuScore simulation predicts a total blowout and gives Werder Bremen practically no chance of to pull an upset here. The simulation is run without Ribery on the lineup for Bayern and yet the average amount of goals scored is close to four. No surprise though, with the likes of Lewandowski, Robben, Götze and Müller in the starting XI with each and every one having the probability to score at more than 55%. The abundance of world-class talent available for Pep is overwhelming and no matter the injuries there are still plenty of options to choose from. If we go ahead and add Ribery to the mix, the result is even more lopsided with Ribery having the goal scoring probability of 57,9%. Additionally the probability of Werder Bremen scoring goes down with Ribery added to the lineup, quite likely because of the increased ball possession by the Frenchman.



All in all, it seems not to matter who will Guardiola pick in the starting XI as the quality of the squad is always top-notch. Bundesliga appears to be a piece of cake, but European success might prove to be a different story. Or not.