Hartberg v Admira Wacker

With an Austrian Cup semi-final to look forward to and a place in the Austrian Bundesliga’s top six still within reach, it has been another season of surpassed expectations for eighth-placed Hartberg, a club based in a tiny village in Styria and with one of the smallest budgets in the division. For 11^th-placed Admira, former nine-time champions of Austria, it looks set to be another season battling the drop. That said, there are only five points between the teams and the points are going to be halved when the league splits in a month’s time. 

Hartberg have a clean bill of health, although they will need to be careful: four regular starters have accumulated four yellow cards this season and will be suspended if they pick up another booking. Admira do actually have a suspension for this match – key defender Wilhelm Vorsager is banned for one game – but there are no new injury concerns, with only long-term absentees Filip Ristanic and Ilay Elmkies ruled out.

Although Hartberg’s Austrian Bundesliga form before the break was patchy – only four points from their last five games – Admira are currently winless in both their last eight league matches and the last eight meetings between these two teams (D1 L7). The latter statistic represents a club-record unbeaten run for Hartberg, who are the favourites to prevail in this match too. Our recommendation would be to bet on them to win outright.  

LASK v Austria Klagenfurt

LASK’s story this season has been one of contrasting fortunes: they may have had the best record of any club in the Europa Conference League group stage (16 points from six matches), but their league form has been woeful and not all that long ago they were rooted to the bottom of the table. Now, though, they are only four points off the top six and will desperately need to beat promoted Austria Klagenfurt, who have had a fine campaign on their return to the top flight and currently sit in fourth place.

The men from Linz will be a bit short of defensive options, with regular starters Petar Filipovic and Philipp Wiesinger both injured, while important midfielder Lukas Grgic is suspended for one game. Austria Klagenfurt, meanwhile, have a 13-man injury list and called off their midweek friendly against SAK Klagenfurt as a result. Many of the absentees have featured only sparingly this term, but centre-back Nicolas Wimmer, left winger Tim Maciejewski and attacking midfielder Patrick Greil will be big losses.

The head-to-head definitely belongs to LASK, who have won nine and drawn two of their 11 competitive meetings with Austria Klagenfurt. But form this season would suggest this clash is by no means a foregone conclusion. A safer better might be for both teams to score – as was the case in the 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture. BTTS generally applies for the entire Austrian Bundesliga: it has happened in 62% of matches this season, a statistic only bettered across the border in the Swiss Super League (68%).