This looks like a match between a side that makes chances without the ball and a side that has the ball but does very little with it. Hertha play direct and in volume with modest possession, while Kiel keep the ball, win corners and then struggle to put anything on target. Kiel are last in the table, winless, and arrive thinner at the back than usual.
Over the last ten matches where shot data exists, Hertha average around nineteen shots to fourteen conceded, about seven shots on target to five, and an expected-goals edge of roughly two to one and a third. Kiel sit almost level on those numbers: fourteen shots each way, only three shots on target a game, and expected goals of about one and a half either side. Hertha won the expected-goals contest in six of their seven measured games, including away at Dresden, Osnabruck and Braunschweig, so the travel has not blunted them.
The key matchup is Hertha's wide and half-space attack, with Brekalo creating and the wingers running at the flanks, against a Kiel back line that has lost Rosenboom and Roslyng and is bringing Zec back from suspension. In midfield Kiel's Balzi and Meffert should see plenty of the ball against Hertha's two-man base, but last week at Braunschweig that possession produced eleven shots and none on target. Kiel's absences were checked in two sources, the squad list and a preview from the day before, and none of the five flagged players were even in the matchday squad last time out.
Expect Hertha to start the sharper side, with Kiel owning territory and corners. Corners are Kiel's most real route, since Hertha concede a fair number, though the data cannot size how many goals that produces. Hertha have shown they can win from behind and late, so a Kiel opener would not end the game, while an early Hertha goal would force a Kiel side with no shots on target last week into a chase it has not shown it can win.
That is why I am siding with Hertha Berlin to win away. The shot and expected-goals gap is the longest sample I have, it points to them, and Kiel's depleted back line and midfield make the gap harder for the hosts to close.
