Against All Odds: Stuttgart to get something at stuttering Leverkusen

2Mar 2013

Leverkusen are fairly long-odds on for their Bundesliga clash with Stuttgart this evening, but with the away side coming back into form, Paul Robinson thinks that they can take something from the game.

Bayer Leverkusen are having a fantastic season with ex-Liverpool player Sami Hyypia and Sascha Lewandowski both at the helm. It's somewhat of a quirky partnership but it's worked tremendously as they have their team up in third place, just one point behind reigning champions Borussia Dortmund.

Their form has dipped slightly since the winter break as after an initial victory over Eintracht Frankfurt, the Lions have won just one of their next five Bundesliga games and were knocked out of the Europa League by Benfica, losing both legs. The most disappointing result was arguably last time out where they drew 0-0 at rock bottom Greuther Fürth, and my concern ahead of tonight is that the managerial partnership is very inexperienced and this is their first mini crisis.

Stuttgart are in 11th place and like their opponents, they came back from the winter break in poor form. They lost their first four league games in January, scoring just two goals and conceding 11. They seem to have got back on track now though as since those defeats, Bruno Labbadia's men have knocked Genk out of the Europa League, picked up four points from a possible six in the league and progressed through to the next round of the DFB Pokal.

It is fair to say that the opposition they have faced hasn't exactly been of the highest quality, but you can only beat what's put in front of you. It's also worth noting that from around the end of October to Christmas time, VFB were in fine form, winning seven out of 10 fixtures at one point.

The reverse fixture between these two finished 2-2 earlier in the season and when they met at the BayArena back in April the score was also 2-2. I can see something like that again, so with Leverkusen trading around the 1.56 mark, I have to make them my lay of the day.

Recommended Bet

Lay Leverkusen v Stuttgart @ 1.56

This match is available on Betfair Live Video at 17:30