Fortuna Dusseldorf vs Schalke 04 28/05/20

28 May 2020

Fortuna Dusseldorf welcome the out-of-sorts Schalke 04 side to the Merkur Spiel-Arena, hoping to stretch their unbeaten run in the Bundesliga (BL) H2Hs to three straight games (W1, D1).

Winless in four successive league matches (D4), the hosts have slipped to 16th in the table and could face a risk of playing the play-offs should this winless streak continues. It seems they encounter another daunting prospect of posting their first BL triumph since late February, as they take on a side they’ve failed to beat in each of their three previous top-flight home H2Hs (D1, L2). Much of Fortuna’s hopes to dodge a failure here will depend on whether or not they can open the scoring. Indeed, they lost all five of their BL home games in which they’ve shipped the opening goal.

Meanwhile, the visitors are enduring tough times, having failed to pick up a single win in their last nine BL fixtures (D4, L5), drawing a blank on seven of those occasions. In fact, ‘Die Königsblauen’ have lost both of their league outings since returning to action, succumbing to a multiple-goal defeat each time and failing to find the back of the net, too. Things go from bad to worse, as David Wagner’s men have not won in seven consecutive BL road trips (D3, L4), drawing a blank in the last five. Probably the only consolation for the traveling fans is that the ‘Miners’ have avoided defeat in all three of their previous trips to the current bottom-four sides (W2, D1).