We haven’t even made it a quarter of the way through the season, and Bayern Munich are already five points clear at the top of the Bundesliga table with a +23 goal difference (and a +14 xG difference).
Bayern have a 100% record so far this season, despite already facing three of the four teams below them in the table.
It’s already starting to feel like the title race is all wrapped up, but surely that is an exaggeration? Well, according to Predicting Ball (yes, I will stop promoting it soon), that is not the case. The model gives Bayern Munich a 97.5% chance of winning the Bundesliga, which doesn’t seem very promising. To be fair, I am still working on tweaking the model because it has a few performance issues, one of which is that it feels overconfident about some outcomes. The certainty it has about Bayern winning the league doesn’t feel entirely unwarranted, but I would probably argue that 97.5% is a little high given how much randomness can impact football. Still, I’m not sure I’d be betting against Bayern any time soon.
Let’s see how the rest of the Bundesliga is getting on. Hopefully, it will be a little more exciting than the top spot.
Results
Here are the results from Matchday 7:
Union Berlin 3-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Heidenheim 2-2 Werder Bremen
FC Köln 1-1 Augsburg
Mainz 3-4 Bayer Leverkusen
RB Leipzig 2-1 Hamburg
Wolfsburg 0-3 VfB Stuttgart
Bayern Munich 2-1 Borussia Dortmund
Freiburg 2-2 Eintracht Frankfurt
St. Pauli 0-3 Hoffenheim
Standings
Die Fohlen Might be in Real Trouble
Borussia Mönchengladbach are now winless in seven games this season and, as a result, find themselves rock-bottom in the Bundesliga. I keep thinking they can’t possibly be this bad, but with every game that they fail to mount a recovery, the doubt starts to creep in. Maybe Gladbach are really going to go down?
On Friday, the Foals faced a Union Berlin side that has been struggling as well. But Union beat Gladbach comfortably, putting three past the struggling side and never really looking in any danger.
I still believe this Gladbach side should be better than it has been so far this season. The Foals are 9th in the league according to xGD/90, and my Predicting Ball model has them 11th in the overall team ratings. But the longer this poor run of form goes on, the bigger the hole they have to dig themselves out of. At some point, they will be so far adrift that even if they do start to play to their level, the points difference will be too big to make up. Clearly, that isn’t the case yet. They are only two points off safety. My model gives them a 28.9% probability of relegation, which, to me at least, feels a touch too strong. It does show that Borussia Mönchengladbach are in serious trouble, though.
Your Thoughts?
What do you think about the races at both ends of the table? Is the title race already over? Are Borussia Mönchengladbach one of the favourites to be relegated? Let us know in the comments.
