RB Leipzig vs Hamburger - Leipzig look to keep in touch at the top with Hamburg win

This weekend the Bundesliga's newest club faces its oldest as RB Leipzig host Hamburg.

Title-chasing Leipzig trail league leaders Bayern Munich by four points in their first season in the top flight, while Hamburg, who are the only side to have competed in every Bundesliga campaign since its inaugural season in 1963-64, are in the bottom three.

Leipzig were beaten 1-0 away by Borussia Dortmund last weekend, with top goalscorer Timo Werner missing the game due to illness. The 20 year-old has scored 11 goals this season and they will need their main striker if they are to hunt down Bayern.

Leipzig will be without the suspended Marvin Compper but Emil Forsberg returns from his suspension. In addition to Werner, Leipzig coach Ralph Hasenhuttl is hopeful of the returns of Marcel Sabitzer and Diego Demme, who were all missing against Dortmund.

"We hope that there will be no setbacks and we hope we can bring them back gradually and play them at the weekend," Hasenhuttl told Kicker.de.

Hamburg have won their last two games without conceding a goal. The 1-0 league victory against Bayer Leverkusen last week saw them move out of the automatic relegation places.

Hasenhuttl is still expecting a tough game and is wary of losing too much ground on Bayern.

"We are expecting an intense duel, which will demand everything again. We have the support of our fans in the ground and it is always fun to play every home game and prepare the people here in the city on a nice weekend," Hasenhuttl told the Leipzig official club website.

"With coach Markus Gisdol, a new philosophy has also come to HSV. They switch play quickly and work forward with a lot of speed and quality.

"Some of their approach is very similar to our game and it will be important to prevent the fast counter-attacks. You can see that the team has found itself and is on the up. During the week Hamburg beat Cologne in the DFB-Pokal confidently and will come with confidence to Leipzig."

Gisdol made six changes in the 2-0 win over Cologne and is expected to make more changes to his starting line-up on Saturday.

Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Matthias Ostrzolek could both return, while Lewis Holtby and Albin Ekdal are both injury doubts.

Pierre-Michel Lasogga returned to the bench against Cologne following his injury. The striker has not featured since the 2-1 win against Schalke on December 20.

Michael Gregoritsch has returned to training for the visitors, but it looks like it is too soon for a return.