RB Leipzig v Paderborn preview: The start of Timo Werner's Farewell Tour?

RB Leipzig are looking to make three wins from five since the restart when they take on bottom of the table Paderborn on Saturday.

Die Roten Bullen currently sit third in the Bundesliga table two points behind Borussia Dortmund and nine points from leaders Bayern Munich. Leipzig come into this game on the back of a great win away at FC Koln. The game ended 4-2 to Leipzig after a thrilling 90 minutes.

Paderborn are bottom of the Bundesliga going into matchday 30 and are six points off of Werder Bremen who currently occupy the relegation play-off spot and eight points away from Fortuna Dusseldorf in 16th. Paderborn also come into this game after being beaten 6-1 at home by Dortmund last weekend.

Timo Werner's goodbye tour

The big news to come out of Leipzig this week is that prolific striker Timo Werner could be playing his final five games for the East German side. This came after revelations that the German is on his way to join Premier League side, Chelsea after the West Londoners activated his release clause. At the time of writing, this move has not been made official yet but could be in the coming days.

Werner has been Leipzig's main hitman this season bagging 25 goals in the Bundesliga and has been impressive since he moved to Leipzig in 2016 from his hometown club VFB Stuttgart. Werner will be incredibly hard to replace as Leipzig's next top scorers are Marcel Sabitzer and Patrick Schick who are both on nine goals.

Werner will hope to leave Leipzig on a high of at least running Bayern close for the title and Robert Lewandowski close for the golden boot.

Miracle on Paderborner Strasse

To say Paderborn need a miracle to survive is an understatement. Paderborn would need to win pretty much all of their matches to stand any chance of staying up. Which would mean they would win more matches than they have all season which just seems impossible.

The team will also be low on confidence after the 6-1 drubbing they received last weekend. It doesn't help that Leipzig are in free-scoring form at the moment scoring 12 times in their previous four.

Paderborn's meteoric rise back to the Bundesliga was very impressive, but even they knew it would have been a struggle to retain their status.

Team News

Julian Naglesmann will be without Kevin Kampl, Yussuf Poulsen, Ibrahima Konate, Ethan Ampadu or Fabrice Hartmann for the fixture.

For the away side, they will be without Luca Killian who is still sidelined with a thigh injury and Jamilu Collins who will be suspended due to his yellow card against Dortmund.