Interview of the week: "I haven't played as well as I can do since Christmas"

Marvin, you face a Wolfsburg side this Sunday who have been busy in the Europa League in midweek. Is that an advantage for 1899 and how do you think Hoffenheim will have to play at the Volkswagen Arena to take the advantage?

I think Wolfsburg found it tough against Fulham on Thursday evening and they'll undoubtedly still be feeling that one. It's our job to make the most of that by maintaining a high tempo over the 90 minutes. We can't let Wolfsburg settle down, we need to keep them busy. If we can do that, we should have the upper hand because we didn't play during the week.

What are Wolfsburg's strengths and weaknesses?

Wolfsburg are renowned for their attacking capabilities, but they have a few gaps in defence. We need to keep things tight at the back ourselves and then try and exploit their defensive frailties.

Dzeko, Grafite and Misimovic: How can you stop the golden trio?
By cutting out any mistakes and not giving them room to play. It's hugely important that we don't allow them into the game. I think they have more to their team than just Dzeko, Grafite and Misimovic, though. They have a lot of other dangerous players so we need to keep it tight and try to hit them on the counter.

There are still six games to go. What are your goals for the rest of the season?

Basically we want to put in a good performance every week and try to work on the things the manager says we need to improve on. I don't want to look too far into the future, I try to take it one game at a time. The only thing that matters at the moment is getting the points in Wolfsburg.

Things haven't gone quite as 1899 may have hoped since Christmas. What do you make of the team's form since the winter break?

When you're developing as a team, things don't always go as you might hope. We certainly would have liked to have picked up more points over the course of the season, but we've had a few games where we've been mighty unfortunate. Sometimes it's been the smallest things which have decided games. The important thing is that we keep working hard on our deficiencies and try to build on our strengths.

How pleased have you been with your own performances in the second half of the season?

I haven't played as well as I would have liked, obviously, but I'm just doing my best to work on my game and get back to my best. To be honest, I think I probably made just as many mistakes last year, but they were viewed in a different way - whether by the club, the fans or the press. From that point of view, there's no point getting carried away with it all, as things could be a lot worse. Even when things are going well, there are always going to be mistakes.

How have you dealt with all the criticism in the media?

Criticism is part and parcel of the sport. I knew that from my time in Mönchengladbach. You have to keep your head up, try to improve and bring back some stability to your games, and that's exactly what I'm doing. Obviously it hurts a bit, but you can't afford to think about it too much. We haven't won many games recently so there is always going to be criticism, whether from inside or out, but you have to learn to deal with it in this business.