Looking Around the League: Checking in on the Bundesliga’s Soggy Bottom

We haven’t even made it to Christmas and Bayern Munich are already almost 10 points clear of everyone else, with a whopping goal difference of +40. Absurd. As a result, these Bundesliga roundups have been a little more intermittent. There just isn’t enough to talk about!

However, the good news is that the relegation race always delivers. So much so that Mainz, who are currently stranded at the bottom of the table, showed up out of nowhere to claim a point against Bayern Munich at the weekend. What a silly game.

Let’s see how the rest of the Bundesliga is getting on, before we take a closer look at the relegation race.

Results

Here are the results from Matchday 14:

Union Berlin 3-1 RB Leipzig

Borussia Mönchengladbach 1-3 Wolfsburg

Eintracht Frankfurt 1-0 Augsburg

Hoffenheim 4-1 Hamburger SV

St. Pauli 2-1 Heidenheim

Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 FC Köln

Freiburg 1-1 Borussia Dortmund

Bayern Munich 2-2 Mainz

Werder Bremen 0-4 VfB Stuttgart

Standings

Who is Winning the Fight for Survival?

If you asked me who would get relegated at the start of the season, I probably wouldn’t have had Mainz on my list. In fact, I was asked that question in the summer, and my answer was Augsburg and Heidenheim. Mainz weren’t on my radar. I don’t think they were on anyone’s radar. But they appear to be very bad. Predicting Ball doesn’t think they are the worst team in the league, and is giving them a 35.9% probability of being relegated, but they do have the worst xGD/90 in the Bundesliga right now. The draw against Bayern Munich is promising, but they have quite a lot of ground to make up already. Are Mainz going to find themselves in real trouble?

I think there are probably four teams in the relegation race: Mainz, Augsburg, Heidenheim, and St. Pauli. Predicting Ball sees it as five teams, but I disagree that Hamburger SV will get pulled into the scrap. Of the three teams in the race besides Mainz, St. Pauli are the one I’m least sure on. St. Pauli started the season well but have collapsed since. They held on for dear life to claim three points against relegation rivals Heidenheim at the weekend, and now they are sat in the relegation playoff spot. Perhaps this is something to build on?

For my money, Augsburg and Heidenheim are still the worst teams in the league. Mainz surely have more going on than they are showing right now, and maybe if they can drop out of the UEFA Conference League they can focus on the Bundesliga and fix the mess they are in. St. Pauli’s cromulent defense makes me a little more confident about their chances of survival, but it’s also possible that their offense is so bad that having a half decent defense isn’t enough.

Predicting Ball sees St. Pauli and Heidenheim going down. It also has them as the two worse teams in the league. But the fact that Mainz are a whole four points adrift at the bottom is certainly a cat among the pigeons.

Your Thoughts?

Which of the four or five contenders do you think will suffer relegation? Let us know in the comments.