Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

It might only be the middle of the week. But we’re already itching for the weekend. So instead of waiting for it to come around, we’re jumping ahead to look at it right now.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• This weekend’s Bundesliga and Ligue 1 match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three picks from this weekend’s Bundesliga and Ligue 1 games. ✅

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Coming up this weekend, we’ve got a nice batch of matches across the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🇩🇪 Bundesliga

Friday 09 October

• 20:30 — Borussia Dortmund vs Werder Bremen

Saturday 10 October

• 15:30 — Augsburg vs Bayern Munich

• 15:30 — Hoffenheim vs Hamburg

• 15:30 — Mainz vs Bayer Leverkusen

• 15:30 — SC Paderborn 07 vs Stuttgart

• 15:30 — Union Berlin vs SV Elversberg

• 18:30 — RB Leipzig vs Eintracht Frankfurt

Sunday 11 October

• 15:30 — FC Cologne vs Borussia Monchengladbach

• 17:30 — Freiburg vs Schalke 04

🇫🇷 Ligue 1

Friday 09 October

• 20:45 — Lens vs Lyon

Saturday 10 October

• 17:15 — Lille vs Le Havre

• 20:45 — Monaco vs Toulouse

• 20:45 — Brest vs Angers

• 20:45 — Lorient vs Paris FC

• 20:45 — PSG vs Le Mans

Sunday 11 October

• 15:00 — Nice vs Strasbourg

• 17:15 — Rennes vs Auxerre

• 20:45 — Troyes vs Marseille

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ Borussia Dortmund vs Werder Bremen
🏟️ German Bundesliga
📅 Friday 09 October; 20:30 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • In their 2 away games this season, Bremen lost 4-1 at Freiburg and drew 1-1 at Koln with an average of 2.5 conceded per game.

  • In 4 games this season, Dortmund has only conceded 2 goals, and none in its 2 home games.

  • Dortmund has remained undefeated in seven straight head-to-heads (5 wins, 2 draws), with the last 2 head-to-heads ending with Bremen going goalless (2-0 and 3-0).

• CXSports says: Dortmund will probably win this without too many issues. And it’s not just because of their headline six straight wins since late August in a run that included 17 goals scored against just 4 conceded. Although, before you read too much into that, one of those wins was a 5-0 over an amateur club, and a league opening run against softer competition including the newly promoted Paderborn. In any case, strip out the “easy wins” and it’s still 4 wins from 4, 9 goals scored and 2 conceded, with 3 clean sheets, which is still extremely respectable.
  
  But there’s a bigger reason why Dortmund will probably win here, and it’s got nothing to do with their form or quality. Rather, it’s because Bremen’s been rather weak on the road this season. In their 2 away games this season, they’ve conceded 5 and scored 2 (4-1 at Freiburg and 1-1 at Koln). Then, during the break, they also lost a practice match 0-7 to a random Dutch side (Twente) despite playing with what their own coach called “a Bundesliga-standard line-up.” And now, they must travel to Dortmund with 5 injured players missing, including midfielder Jens Stage (last season’s top scorer).
  
  In reality, the only real saving grace here for Bremen is Dortmund’s back line. Centre-back Nico Schlotterbeck and captain Emre Can are both out injured, while defender Julian Ryerson is a doubt. So their usually rock-solid defence — the one that’s only conceded 0.50 goals per game this season — may not be so rock solid this time around.The only question is whether Bremen can take advantage of it — while they have scored in all 4 of their league games and managed an average of 2.0 per game, all but 2 of their 8 goals this season were scored at home.
  
  And while we’re at is, let’s not forget the head-to-head history here either. Dortmund’s currently on a 7-game unbeaten streak (5 wins and 2 draws), while the last two games ended in decisive clean sheet victories (2-0 and 3-0).
  
  As such, we’re fairly certain this one finishes with another decisive victory for Dortmund.

• Score prediction: 3-1 for Borussia Dortmund

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Borussia Dortmund Victory

• Odds Range: 1.22-1.41

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.25-1.41

⚽ Augsburg vs Bayern Munich
🏟️ German Bundesliga
📅 Saturday 10 October; 15:30 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Bayern are averaging 3.50 goals per game this season with 14 goals in 4 games while only conceding 2.

  • Augsburg have conceded in 3 of their 4 league games while conceding 6 across goals against 11 scored.

  • The last 10 head-to-heads between these two have ended in 8 wins for Bayern and 2 wins for Augsburg.

• CXSports says: Bayern have scored 14 and conceded 2 in four league games, which works out to a rather massive 3.50 goals per game on average. And while doing that, they’ve only conceded 2 in 4 games for and 0.50 per game. Of course, seven of those goals came in a single game against Union Berlin (who’s 17th of 18). However, even if we ignore the Union game, Bayern still averages 2.33 goals scored and 0.67 conceded across the other three. Meanwhile, Augsburg conceded 6 goals in 4 games at a rate of 1.50 per game while scoring 11 at a rate of 2.75 per game. So while there’s no question about their ability to score at the same level as Bayern, they’re doing so at a much higher concession rate.
  
  Besides their scoring rate, Augsburg also has another thing working in its favor — since their new coach (Manuel Baum) took over in December, they’ve only lost 1 of 13 home games in the Bundesliga. Although, they’ve done so with a fairly high level of draws — their last 5 home games delivered 2 wins against 3 draws, all of which came against lesser teams than Bayern.
  
  Besides that, the other factor that does swing Augsburg’s way is the last head-to-head match in this fixture, which they won (2-1) back in January. However, that’s just one game, while the three games before that all went to Bayern (3-0, 3-1 and 3-2), while the last 10 have seen Bayern winning 8 against just 2 victories for Augsburg.
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, there’s no reason why Bayern shouldn’t win here, even if there are plenty of reasons why Augsburg will at least be competitive and should at least score. The real problem is, they probably won’t be able to score enough against Bayern’s defense without giving up too many easy goals in defense.

• Score prediction: 1-3 for Bayern Munich

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Bayern Munich Victory

• Odds Range: 1.09-1.22

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.29-1.48

⚽ PSG vs Le Mans
🏟️ French Ligue 1
📅 Saturday 10 October; 20:45 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Le Mans have scored and conceded 9 goals this season at a rate 1.8 of each per game.

  • PSG has scored 8 goals and conceded 7 this season at a rate of 1.6 scored and 1.4 conceded.

  • The last three head-to-heads between these two resulted in 3 straight PSG victories with an aggregate score of 10-1.

• CXSports says: Looking at the Ligue 1 table, this one looks like it should be close. PSG’s in 6th place with 8 scored and 7 conceded, while Le Mans is in 9th with 9 scored and 9 conceded. And yet, PSG are morethan likely to win this one comfortably. The reason is that while the table looks close, both teams have faced rather different opposition so far this season. Le Mans’ five opponents sit, on average, in 11th on the table, and the only top-half team they’ve faced was Rennes. And they lost. Meanwhile, PSG’s opponents this season average 7.6 on the Ligue 1. And they also happened to play Rennes. And they drew. So once you adjust each sides’ league stats for that, Le Mans looks a little less hot.
  
  Of course, none of this makes this the sort of PSG game their old reputation promises. They’ve won only 2 of their 5 league games this season, sit 5 points behind Monaco, and they lost their only home game this season (2-1 to Monaco). And, they’ve only kept one clean sheet in their last six matches across all competitions while conceding 8 in that run. What’s more, there’s a chance the future might also play a role here — PSG play away at Manchester City in the Champions League four days after this game, and will be hosting Barcelona six days after that. So there’s a chance some of their best players will sit this one out.
  
  Still, the effect of all that is, more likely than not, simply going to be a haircut for the margin rather than an inversion of the result. Particularly once we throw the only recent(ish) head-to-heads into the equation — 3 wins from 3 games for PSG with an aggregate score of 10-1. And while that might not be entirely indicative of the margin this game will end with, it still serves as a fairly decent indication of the result.

• Score prediction: 3-1 for PSG

Bet Option #1

• Bet: PSG Victory

• Odds Range: 1.03-1.09

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.15-1.24

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. We’ll be back later in the week as we look ahead to more of the upcoming weekend’s football action across both the Premier League and La Liga.

Until then, enjoy the football.