Having just picked up their first win of the season Darmstadt will visit Augsburg on Saturday afternoon in an encounter set up to be full of goals.

Augsburg narrowly avoided relegation last season in finishing one point above the relegation zone. Again, they find themselves struggling, only picking up five points from a possible 18. Despite their poor starts, their matches have been far from boring, with an average of four goals per game.

Manager Enrico Maassen will be concerned with his side’s defensive performances, with Augsburg failing to keep a clean sheet thus far. The hosts have shown some promise going forward this season, with Ermedin Demirovic being their star man. The Bosnian forward has been involved in six goals across the first six games.

As expected, Darmstadt’s start to life in the Bundesliga has been tough, losing four of their opening six games. Like Augsburg’s games, Darmstadt’s matches have been packed with goals, with 28 goals in total.

Torsten Lieberknecht’s men have the second-worst defensive record in the league, conceding an average of three goals per game. Despite this, Darmstadt’s attacking record is fairly surprising, having scored ten times in six games. Some of these goals have come against tough opposition including Union Berlin, Leverkusen and Stuttgart.

Three or more goals have been scored in six of Augsburg’s last seven games and in all of Darmstadt’s last five. Both sides have concerning defensive records but have both demonstrated their attacking capabilities on multiple occasions this season.

It has been a bitterly disappointing start to the 2023/24 Bundesliga season for Bochum as they are one of only three teams in the league who are yet to record their first win. They find themselves with a difficult task if they are to change that, as they head to Marco Rose’s Leipzig, who are unbeaten in the league since the opening day of the season.

Bochum are yet to keep a clean sheet so far this season and they have also conceded the most goals in the league with 19, which is an average of just over 3.1 goals per game. Leipzig will certainly be looking to exploit the defensive weaknesses that Bochum have shown this term, particularly considering the plethora of attacking options they have at their disposal.

The last five meetings between these two sides have seen a total of 13 goals, which is an average of 2.6 goals per game.

Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid side returned to the summit of La Liga last weekend following an impressive 3-0 victory away to surprise packages Girona, and they will be hoping to continue their decent start to the season in Saturday’s game at home to Osasuna.

Jude Bellingham impressed yet again for Los Blancos as he provided a goal and an assist in last week’s top of the table clash, taking his tally to six goals and two assists in his opening seven league games for his new club.

Last season’s Copa Del Rey runners up Osasuna have started the campaign in decent form as they find themselves in ninth place, just four points off the European places and their aim will be to push on and see if they can finish in there come the end of the season.

Real have been imperious in front of goal so far this term whilst also being tactically astute at the back with games involving them this season have seen 22 goals, which averages to 2.75 goals per game.

Osasuna have seen similar entertainment in their fixtures so far, with 19 goals being scored in their opening eight fixtures which averages out to 2.38 goals per game.

With all these stats in mind, it seems as though the overs goal market is the most sensible one to explore for this fixture, and over 2.5 certainly looks a nice price at 1.53.

The late afternoon kick off in the Bundesliga on Saturday sees Hoffenheim take on Werder Bremen at the Weserstadion.

The home side will start as slight underdogs for this one which can in part be attributed to their recent poor defensive record. We’ve seen some really disjointed performances from Die Werderaner at the back this season, something which was evident in the last two away games against two of the favourites for relegation, Darmstadt and Heidenheim.

Bremen lost both of these encounters 4-2 and they’ll have to tighten up considerably if they are to improve results. However, Ole Werner can draw some positives at the other end of the pitch as the home side have scored ten goals in their six league outings this campaign. With German forward Marvin Ducksch providing the main attacking threat, the home side will be confident of netting against a Hoffenheim side that are conceding an average of 1.5 goals a game themselves.

Pellegrino Matarazzo’s men had won four consecutive games prior to their 3-1 defeat at Borussia Dortmund last weekend and will hope to get their league campaign back on track. Hoffenheim have been entertaining on the road of late and have won all four league games, scoring an incredible 12 goals in the process, an average of three goals per game.

Croatian forward Andrej Kramaric has been in scintillating form and has scored in the last five consecutive games for both club and country. Partnered with young German talent Maximilian Beier up front, the duo will no doubt cause all sorts of problems for a defence that is low on confidence. Five of the previous six head-to-heads have produced three or more goals with the away side winning this fixture last season 2-1, a similar result is expected again.

These two sides almost always produce goals and there is everything to suggest another high-scoring game is to come. Over 2.5 goals is the sensible selection.