FIRST TEAM
02/20/2020

Schreuder: "Be courageous and show our qualities"

TSG and Gladbach are gearing up for their 24th Bundesliga meeting. Borussia currently sit in fourth place in the division and have an impressive home record. But Hoffenheim head coach Alfred Schreuder is confident ahead of the meeting on Saturday (15:30 CET/Live Ticker at achtzehn99.de) – having seen his side perform well against other top clubs in the division.

Alfred Schreuder on…

…Mönchengladbach's run of eight successive home wins:

"We're obviously aware that Borussia are a very strong opponent, have developed very well and are very strong at home. That's a big challenge for us, but if we show courage, spaces will open up for us. Mönchengladbach deserve their place towards the top of the table. They play very good football; it's super what they're doing. But Gladbach also know that we've put in some very good performances away to the top teams and beaten them."

…the approach on Saturday:

"We have a lot of quality against teams who attack. We simply need to be courageous and show our qualities – as we did in the second half in Munich. If we have the courage to move the ball about and to hold onto possession, our opponent will grow uneasy, because they also want to have the ball to play their own game. And then we'll get spaces to go forward ourselves."

…TSG's personnel situation:

"Dennis Geiger is available again; Ilay Elmkies and Ishak Belfodil are the only injury absentees. Sargis Adamyan and Ihlas Bebou will return to training towards the end of the week; we'll have to see whether they can play."

…Robert Skov's role:

"In theory, he could start in an attacking role on the right. But that also depends on whether players such as Ihlas Bebou and Sargis Adamyan can play and what the situation is with Steven Zuber and Konstantinos Stafylidis; we have more options again on the left. For a while Robert was a left-back for us, but he also hasn't done badly in an attacking role on the right and in the future, he'll be more of an attacker on the right rather than a left-back."

The social media question of the week:

Christoph Baumgartner has established himself as a regular this season. What do you like about him?

"He believes in his abilities, he's courageous – and when he makes mistakes, he's not afraid to try again. He's a superb player who has progressed from the academy to the senior squad and given an extremely good account of himself here. He's had one or two problems this season but has always worked hard and worked on his physique after training too. He's an intelligent player, scores goals and sets them up too; on top of that, he does a good job defensively and is one of the hardest-running players in every game. His mentality is very good, his feet are on the ground and he's simply a very good attacking player for us who is extremely fast to boot."

The opposition's form:

Mönchengladbach currently sit fourth in the Bundesliga with a match in hand. The Foals have won eight home games in a row and beat Düsseldorf 4-1 away last time out. It goes without saying they are riding high.

Head-to-head record:

The two teams have faced each other 23 times in the Bundesliga since gaining promotion together in 2008. Hoffenheim and Gladbach have seven victories apiece, while there have been nine draws as well. Mönchengladbach won the reverse fixture in Sinsheim by a 3-0 scoreline, though the away fixture last term ended 2-2.

 

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