Smart Acca Picks: Chelsea vs Fulham Could Provide Plenty of Entertainment

Paderborn and Fortuna Dusseldorf go head to head in Bundesliga 2 in a battle of fifth against sixth.

The home side have managed to win just one of their last five matches, beating Karlsruher 1-0 on 27th January. Their other four fixtures have resulted in four losses, doing so by 2-1 scorelines to Stuttgart and Nurnberg, as well as 2-0 and 3-0 against Arminia Bielefeld and Heidenheim.

Fortuna have won three of their last five matches, beating Magdeburg 3-2 last time out thanks to goals by Dawid Kownacki (2) and Shinta Appelkamp. This was after 2-1 and 2-0 losses to Kaiserslautern and Hannover 96. Before the run of aforementioned results, Dusseldorf also beat St. Pauli 1-0 and Holstein Kiel 2-1.

West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City face off on Friday night in a meeting of tenth against 13th.

The Baggies enter this game off the back of two losses to Bristol City 3-0 and Burnley 2-1, having beaten Chesterfield 4-0 in the FA Cup after a 3-3 draw in the initial fixture, as well as beating Luton Town 3-2 as Daryl Dike, Jason Molumby and Conor Townsend all got on the scoresheet.

Coventry managed their only win in their last five matches last time out, as the Sky Blues beat Huddersfield Town 2-0. Prior to this, Mark Robins’ men had lost 4-2, 1-0 and 4-3 to Norwich, Burnley and Wrexham after drawing 1-1 with Bristol City.

14th takes on ninth in the Bundesliga as Augsburg hosts Bayer Leverkusen on Friday night, with Xabi Alonso’s side looking to get back to winning ways.

Augsburg have won just one of their last five matches, defeating Borussia Monchengladbach 1-0 on 25th January, but, they have since lost 3-1 to Freiburg and had been beaten 4-3 and 1-0 prior to this victory to Borussia Dortmund and Bochum. Their other result in their last five games saw them earn a creditable 2-2 draw away at high-flying Union Berlin.

Leverkusen’s 2-0 home loss to Borussia Dortmund ended a sequence of four wins in a row, following 2-0, 3-2, 2-0 and 2-1 victories over Bochum, Borussia Monchengladbach, Stuttgart and Koln.

In the Belgian Pro League, KV Oostende goes up against Anderlecht.

At present, Oostende sits 17th in the table, with their 2-2 away draw at Kortrijk last time out being the only time that they have avoided defeat in their last five matches, following three 2-1 losses to Cercle Brugge, Mechelen and RFC Seraing, while also being beaten 3-0 at home to Antwerp.

Anderlecht’s form has also been suspect this season, seeing them sit 11th, having won just one of their last five games, defeating RFC Seraing 1-0 before a 0-0 draw at home to Antwerp. Before these matches, they had lost 3-2 and 3-1 to Zulte Waregem and Union Saint-Gilloise on either side of a 1-1 away draw with Club Brugge.

The final game on this list sees Chelsea take on Fulham at Stamford Bridge, with the Blues knowing that a win would take them above the Cottagers.

Since back-to-back 1-0 and 4-1 losses to Manchester City, which were further compounded with a 2-1 loss at Craven Cottage against Friday’s opponents, Chelsea have managed to get two positive results, having beaten Crystal Palace 1-0 thanks to a Kai Havertz goal, as well as drawing 0-0 against Liverpool at Anfield, having arguably created enough chances to win the game.

On the other hand, Since beating Hull City 2-0 and Chelsea 2-1, Fulham haven’t won any of their last three matches, losing 1-0 to both Newcastle United and Tottenham before drawing 1-1 at home to Sunderland in the FA Cup.

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