Augsburg vs Dortmund Preview: BVB take on a team in turmoil

Borussia Dortmund visit the WWK Arena on Friday to face a beleaguered Augsburg in the Bundesliga. Buoyed by their penalty shootout win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the DFB-Pokal Cup on Tuesday, Die Borussen are looking for their sixth win of the competition from nine games.

Currently, Niko Kovac's side is in fourth position of the Bundesliga table with 17 points, seven fewer than leaders Bayern Munich, who inflicted Dortmund with their first top-flight defeat of the season earlier this month.

But the Yellow and Blacks recovered to beat Koln 1-0 in their next league game, with Maximilian Beier netting the winning goal in the sixth minute of stoppage time to save their beacon.

Meanwhile, Augsburg are in 15th place in the league standings with just two wins from eight matches and seven points to their name. Their last top-flight game ended in a 6-0 shellacking at the hands of RB Leipzig at home.

Here's what to look forward to as the Fuggerstädter host Dortmund:

1) Third time's the charm for Dortmund?

Dortmund have a good head-to-head record against Augsburg, winning 17 of their 29 clashes in the fixture. But last season, they appeared to run out of luck, losing both their league meetings with the side.

Augsburg beat Dortmund 2-1 at home first, before a narrow 1-0 victory at the Signal Iduna Park. The latter will be hoping to avoid a triple whammy here, especially with their hosts struggling big time.

Having started their campaign with a 3-1 win away to Freiburg, the Fuggerstadter lost their next four in a row before seeing off Wolfsburg 3-1 at home. Koln then held them to a 1-1 draw before Leipzig wiped the floor with Augsburg in a humiliating defeat.

Clearly, the side is experiencing a tough run in the campaign, and Dortmund have a great chance to end their losing run against them.

2) Serhou Guirassy to return to starting lineup?

Guinean talisman Serhou Guirassy came off the bench in their German Cup game against Frankfurt on Tuesday, but could return to the starting line-up for Dortmund here.

With Augsburg's defense looking fragile, Guirassy will be hungry to end his goalscoring drought and return to scoring ways again after a gap of five competitive matches.

Guirassy had made a good start to the season in all competitions, looking sharp and menacing upfront while demonstrating his devastating finishing abilities.

But this month, the striker appeared to run out of steam. He hasn't found the back of the net since scoring in their 4-1 defeat of Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League on 2 October.

3) Augsburg's home woes

Augsburg has really struggled at home this season. In fact, most of their defeats in the campaign have come at the WWK Arena so far: in five outings, they've lost four and won just once.

Bayern Munich beat them 3-2 in their first home game of the season, before Mainz dealt them a 4-1 thumping. But the worst was yet to come as RB Leipzig crushed them 6-0 last weekend.

And if that wasn't enough, second-division side Bochum knocked them out of the DFB-Pokal Cup with a 1-0 victory at the WWK Arena this week. Dortmund will view all this with amusement.

The Fuggerstadter's only positive result in their own backyard has been a 3-1 defeat of Wolfsburg in the league on 4 October. They'd need something special to re-create that performance here against a well-oiled BVB unit.