VfL Wolfsburg host Bayer 04 Leverkusen at the Volkswagen Arena at 17:30 CET on Sunday. At Friday’s pre-match press conference, head coach Florian Kohfeldt spoke about…

…personnel: “Koen Casteels will miss the game unfortunately. The same very probably applies to Maximilian Philipp, who is ill. Renato Steffen was also a bit ill at the start of the week but he’ll be back. Other than that, we’re still without William, Micky van de Ven and Paulo Otavio.”

…Leverkusen: “Bayer were very unfortunate against Köln with their two injuries. They then had a difficult task in the Europa League last night and actually put in a very good performance. In general, I think Leverkusen are having a very good season under Gerardo Seoane. We’re preparing for an absolute top-level opponent who are among the best three sides in Germany. We obviously want to try to bring an intense performance onto the pitch and take advantage of having a whole week of training.”

…consistency in performances: “A permanent theme for us is consistency within a match. We’ve rarely managed to play at a consistent level over 90 minutes in recent weeks. You have to say, even though we lost, the performance here against Hoffenheim was the most consistent of the lot. That’s why the main issue for us is bringing the positive aspects, which are definitely there, onto the pitch for the duration of the game – or more realistically 70 to 80 minutes. Controlling a game for 90 minutes is utopian in the Bundesliga, even though it’s what you should strive for.”

…lessons from the Freiburg game: “We simply made too many individual mistakes last Saturday and that’s why we lost. Training has been good so far this week, though. We had a very intense session on Wednesday. Yesterday we went back to the drawing board and addressed the issue of transitions, which will be very important against Leverkusen. The team were focused today, too, so I’m optimistic and looking forward to the game on Sunday.”