Julian Nagelsmann's Hoffenheim side may be unbeaten in their last six Bundesliga outings ahead of their trip to the Volkswagen Arena on Saturday 8 December (kick-off 15:30 CET), but the Wolves have shown recently that they hold little store by such runs. Last Sunday the Green-Whites' 2-1 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt ended the Eagles' seven-game unbeaten streak in the league, while the previous weekend the Wolves put a halt to RB Leipzig's run of ten Bundesliga games without defeat. At Thursday's pre-match press conference, VfL head coach Bruno Labbadia discussed …
… personnel: "Yannick Gerhardt and Wout Weghorst still have a bit of pain but were both able to take part in the full training session today. John Anthony Brooks and William are both unavailable due to suspension but otherwise we have a full squad to choose from."
… replacing Brooks and William: "I'm very relaxed about it and have complete faith in all the players in the squad. Felix Uduokhai has been playing well for a long time, has trained hard over the last few months and had two good games with the Germany U21s. Paul Verhaegh is our first option to come in at right-back."
… the opposition: "Hoffenheim are a heavyweight, especially when you look at how they've developed over the last few years. We'll need to go to our limit again, just like we did against Leipzig and Frankfurt."
… his expectations of the match: "If we go to our limit then it's always difficult to beat us. Before the season started we set out to play in a certain way, regardless of the opposition, and we want to show that against Hoffenheim again. They're very flexible and you can tell that they're used to playing with each other, so we'll adapt to certain things but we'll still try to play our own game."
