Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Köln - Preview, Stats & Probable Lineups

In-form sides

• Frankfurt and Köln have both won 3 of their last 4 Bundesliga games, with only FC Bayern and Wolfsburg winning all of their last 4 games. 
• Eintracht’s ascent into fourth has taken them into a Champions League spot, whilst Köln’s rise to 14th means they have a buffer of +4 points between themselves and the relegation play-off spot for the first time this season. 
• Köln’s 3 wins in their last 4 games are more than they managed (only 2) across their first 16 games of this season.

EF - Eintracht’s run goes on

• SGE beat Hoffenheim last time out, stretching their unbeaten run in the Bundesliga to 9 games (W7, D2), a longer ongoing streak run than any other Bundesliga club. 
• Apart from under Dragoslav Stepanovic (1992), the only other time Frankfurt have gone on such a long unbeaten run was in Adi Hütter’s first season at the club (11 games unbeaten from January to April 2019). 
• Frankfurt have picked up a league-high 19 out of 21 available points in 2021!

Köln like to upset the odds

• 3 days after an extremely hard to take penalty shoot-out defeat in the DFB-Pokal game in Regensburg, Köln won (1-2) the Rhine derby away to Gladbach and upset the odds once again this season. 
• Köln had already won in Dortmund and taken a point in Leipzig this season. 
• Eintracht will have to be on their toes, because their upcoming opponents are tough to predict this season.

Köln like the winter

• There are parallels to be drawn between Köln’s current season and their efforts last season, when Markus Gisdol’s side also had a run of good form in winter to ease their relegation worries. 
• They suddenly started to win games at the end of November 2019 but went on a bad run at the start of March 2020 that lasted for a while. 
• Since they were promoted in 2019, Köln have won 43 of their 57 points in the winter months.

EF - Perfect Rückrunde

• Frankfurt have won all 3 of their Rückrunde games so far. 
• The only other time that SGE achieved this was a long time ago, in 1966/67. 
• In that season, they lost their fourth Rückrunde game.

EF - Amazing on the counter in 2021

• Under Adi Hütter, Eintracht play high tempo and powerful football. 
• Being quick on turnover of possession didn’t work so well in the first third of the season, but SGE have been much better in recent weeks. 
• Against Hoffenheim, Eintracht scored their sixth goal of the season from a counter-attack (only FC Bayern and Stuttgart have scored more in this fashion) – all of them have come in 2021!

EF - Only FC Bayern scored more often

• In part down to their strength on the counter, Frankfurt have been very dependable going forward this season. The Eagles have scored at least 2 goals in each of their last 9 games. 
• Eintracht’s record of 41 goals is second only to FC Bayern this season. 
• Not Dortmund, Leipzig, nor any other side has scored 40 goals from their first 20 games this season.

EF - André Silva better than Lewandowski in 2021

• André Silva scored again against Hoffenheim, becoming the first Frankfurt player to have ever scored as many as 17 goals from the first 20 Bundesliga games of a season. 
• With 8 goals in 7 games, Silva is the Bundesliga’s top goalscorer in 2021. 
• It’s hard to believe that there isn’t a goalscoring chart that isn’t topped by Robert Lewandowski! 
• The Portuguese forward is being helped by the great form of Filip Kostic, who has assisted 4 of Silva’s last 5 goals.

EF - Historic run of going ahead

• Eintracht have gone ahead in each of their last 13 Bundesliga games, setting a new club record. 
• Their only defeat in this period was a 2-1 loss in Wolfsburg on MD-11 (otherwise W7, D5).

EF - Unbeaten at home

• Frankfurt have only lost 2 Bundesliga games this season – away to FC Bayern and Wolfsburg.
• Eintracht are unbeaten in 11 home games (W6, D5), with their last home defeat a 2-0 loss to Mainz on 6th June 2020.

Köln better away from home

• Köln have picked up 15 of their 21 points this season away from home! 
• As well as their victories in Dortmund and Mönchengladbach, they’ve also won away to Mainz and Schalke04. 
• All 4 of Köln’s away wins were by ONE goal, so 9 goals in 10 away games have led to an impressive 15 points.

Köln - Elvis Rexhbecaj is the derby hero

• Elvis Rexhbecaj had a great game in Gladbach, securing a 2-1 win for Köln with his first brace in the Bundesliga. 
• The midfielder, who covers a lot of ground, won 74% of his challenges in the derby. 
• Köln’s top goalscorer this season has scored 3 of his 5 goals against Gladbach – he really is a derby hero.

Great away win for Köln last season

• Frankfurt have failed to win any of their last 3 games against Köln, losing ONE and drawing 2 since Köln were promoted in 2019. 
• Last season, Köln came back from 2-0 down to win 4-2 in Frankfurt (MD-16 on 18th December 2019)! 
• The reverse fixture this season finished 1-1 (Goals: André Silva (P) and Ondrej Duda, his first goal for Köln).

Köln - Lots of goals in Frankfurt

• Köln have only won more Bundesliga away games in Stuttgart (14) than they have in Frankfurt (13), with their 67 away goals in Frankfurt the most they have away to any Bundesliga side. 
• Köln have scored at least 2 goals in 8 of their last 9 games in Frankfurt!

EF 3-4-2-1:

1 Kevin Trapp

35 Tuta        13 Martin Hinteregger    2 Evan N'dicka (diff.)

25 Erik Durm    8 Djibril Sow    20 Makoto Hasebe [k, diff.]    10 Filip Kostic

15 Daichi Kamada                                32 Amin Younes

33 André Silva

Köln 3511: 

Timo Horn [k]

26 Sava-Arangel Cestic        22 Jorge Meré        5 Rafael Czichos

28 Ellyes Skhiri

2 Benno Schmitz        21 Salih Özcan       20 Elvis Rexhbecaj    23 Jannes Horn (8 Ismail Jakobs)

18 Ondrej Duda                        

                                        43 Emmanuel Dennis