Rose: “We need to push ourselves to the limit”

Ahead of the home game against RB Leipzig that will take place behind closed doors, head coach Marco Rose spoke to the media about…

… team news: Jordan Beyer is building up his fitness following his coronavirus infection and he’ll need a couple more days. Valentino Lazaro is back in team training and will need integrating with some cameos. Denis Zakaria is in a good place, he’s got a week and a half of training behind him where he was fully involved. Nonetheless, I can’t say when he’ll be ready again. 

… rotation in the squad: I don’t mind rotating the starting eleven. All the lads are important and each has a role in the side, and you could definitely see last year that we need everyone. I can’t say how much we’ll change things this weekend. It depends on how the players shape up. Every player is a little different too; some can handle lots of games really well, whereas others need easing back into it after an injury. We’ve done well so far in that we don’t have many injuries. It’s all about picking a good side with fresh legs.

… the mood in camp: The lads had the day off yesterday and it was good for them. They were all refreshed today at training. The mood’s fine after the 2-2 draw with Real Madrid. I find it a shame that people talk about the game in negative terms. No-one is talking about my team’s performance. We played against Real Madrid and we were brilliant for long stretches in the game. The sides had a similar number of chances and we didn’t let them have many clear-cut chances. The side defended really well, had good periods on the ball and scored brilliant goals. We know we’ve conceded a few goals recently, but there’s no easy way to change that. We just need to try to do things differently and better.

… the next opponent: I think that Leipzig, despite yesterday’s 5-0 loss at Manchester United, are a good side. They also had opportunities throughout the game. Leipzig have a side with individual quality, they play with good tempo and they have a clear way of playing. But you don’t know exactly what’s waiting for you, so we need to be prepared for everything. I think they’ve improved even more at pressing and gegenpressing this year; that makes the task at hand even more challenging. Nevertheless, we have a chance to get three points and that’s what we’re going to work towards.

… the big games ahead: Anything can happen in these sorts of games. Like always, we’ll try to win them. We’re playing almost every three days at the moment; we have Leipzig on Saturday, Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday and then we visit Bayer Leverkusen. The lads are looking forward to these games and they’re up for the challenge. But we need to push ourselves to the limit to beat these sides. We’re ambitious heading into the games, but we also know what we have to do if we want to win.

… Hannes Wolf’s development: He’s started really well here at Borussia, he’s had a great pre-season and he’s hungry for more. He played in the DFB-Pokal as well as against Dortmund, so he’s had some time out on the pitch. But he’s joined us after a long injury; he hasn’t played for a year and he needs to get used to a new team here too. That takes some time. He’s also joined a team that has great quality, so there’s competition for places.

29.10.2020

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Gladbach win Eupen friendly 2-0 as Omlin makes comeback

Borussia defeated Belgian Pro League side KAS Eupen 2-0 in Thursday’s friendly at the FohlenPlatz, courtesy of two goals from Shio Fukuda.

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