After drawing 1-1 at home to Sevilla in the UEFA Champions League in midweek, the Green-and-Whites host Borussia Mönchengladbach at 15:30 CEST on Saturday 2 October. Ahead of the game, head coach Mark van Bommel spoke about…
…the personnel situation: “All the players are fit. Playing on Saturday, Wednesday and Saturday is not completely new – all the boys are fit and ready to play. We’re also pleased that Paulo Otavio returned to training yesterday. He trained with us for part of yesterday’s session and was back in full training today – even though it wasn’t a hard workout.”
…VfL’s good record against Gladbach: “It’s nice to talk about statistics. Hopefully we’ll win this game against Mönchengladbach too, but Borussia are a strong and clever team who can anticipate situations and react to changes in games. They’ve been well assembled by Max Eberl – he’s been doing that for many years.”
…the difference between Gladbach’s home and away form: “In Augsburg, they didn’t deserve to lose because they were the better team. Several players had to be taken off due to injury in Leverkusen – those are reasons why games can be lost. We’re strong at home, just like Borussia. We haven’t lost here yet and we hope it stays that way on Saturday.”
…scoring from set plays: “Dead-ball situations are very important. It’s something you can rehearse. If you practise it and have good people at your disposal who understand that and are able to hit the ball into a certain area, as well as players who can burst into the box and head the ball well, you have to exploit that.”
