Red Shorts Slaughtering On The Cards

The waiting is over and the 53rd Bundesliga campaign is ready to roll. As is customary in Germany, the defending champions bring down the curtain on the new season with Bayern Munich welcoming Hamburg to the Allianz Arena on Friday night.

Bayern Gunning For 4th Successive Title
Bayern are looking for an unprecedented fourth successive Bundesliga title and, having finished their 2014/15 season with just the domestic league trophy to show for their efforts, mean business. Speculation surrounds Pep Guardiola’s future as he enters the final year of his contract but the Bavarian giants have strengthened significantly in the summer with Arturo Vidal and Douglas Costa joining the ranks.

With David Alaba, Arjen Robben and Philip Lahm all enjoying injury-free pre-seasons, FC Hollywood are practically at full strength as they enter the 2015/16 renewal. That’s an ominous proposition for the rest of the league as the German giants have previously started their seasons under Pep in untouchable form.

During his first campaign in the Allianz Arena dugout, Guardiola guided Bayern to a W25-D2-L0 return from his first 27 Bundesliga matches in charge. It was a similar story last time out with the champions recording a staggeringly strong W14-D3-L0 before Christmas.

Bayern’s home league form under the Catalan coach has proven equally devastating – W29-D2-L3.

Red Shorts Slaughtering On The Cards
If Hamburg fans are already concerned about Friday night’s encounter, they may want to look away now. The Red Shorts have been slaughtered in each of their last five visits to Bayern by an aggregate score of 31-3 – their last trip to the Allianz Arena in February this year ended in a humiliating 8-0 annihilation.

HSV are the only club never to be relegated from the German top tier but the Dinosaur required a play-off to avoid demotion in the past two seasons. Bruno Labbadia is back for a second spell in charge of the crisis club and has helped to oversee sweeping changes in personnel during a frantic summer.

Skipper Rafael van der Vaart headlined the departures and with financial difficulties impinging upon Labbadia’s ability to splash the cash, the arrivals have failed to inspire confidence from the Hamburg support. The club managed a pathetic 25 goals last season whilst relegated Freiburg scored more and conceded less – highlighting the concerns of Red Short followers.

The 2015/16 campaign has already gotten off to a stinking start for Labbadia’s men. Hamburg were dumped out of the DFB Pokal last weekend by fourth tier side Carl Zeiss Jena and their recent road record also emphasises the task awaiting HSV on Friday night.

Going back to the beginning of the 2012/13 season, we can see Hamburg have W11-D10-L30 in away Bundesliga matches. In 19/51 (37%) outings the visitors failed to score with a rather worrying 20/41 (53%) fixtures ending in losses by two goals or more.

Recommended Bets
It’s almost impossible to make a solid case for the calamity northern travellers so the first port of call is to investigate the best pro-Bayern bets. The home Win To Nil is rated an 8/15 play, which is just too skinny to suggest in this column. Meanwhile, the 3/4 on Bayern -2 in the Match Handicap just isn’t attractive enough – Bayern have won by two or more goals in 13/34 (38%) of home games under Guardiola’s guidance but that equates to a 13/8 play.

Instead, a bet on Bayern to win and Over 3.5 Goals to be scored in the game is 20/21 with BoyleSports and well worth a poke. We’ve already mentioned the defending champions’ ruthless return on home soil and it’s worth pointing out 15/34 (44%) of Allianz Arena outings since Pep arrived have featured four goals or more.

During the same timeframe, Hamburg have suffered 23/34 (68%) defeats on the road and played their part in 13/34 (38%) matches involving Over 3.5 Goals when playing away. Throw in HSV’s nightmare recent record in Munich and we have the ingredients for a decent slice of value in a contest skewed massively by the dominance of the Bavarian giant hosts.

*Prices correct at time of publication