Rose: “We need to keep on going”

Ahead of the upcoming away game against VfB Stuttgart (Saturday at 18:30 CET), head coach Marco Rose spoke to the press about…

…the squad: Breel Embolo has been successfully operated on his hand and he’s doing well, although there are still doubts as to whether he can play or not this weekend. We’ll have to discuss with the doctors what’s best for him. Alassane Plea completed parts of team training today. We’ll see how he’s doing tomorrow after the final training session ahead of the game.

…the upcoming opponents: I’ve seen VfB Stuttgart a few times this season. They’ve got a young, strong and talented side, with some experienced players like Gonzalo Castro in their ranks. They play with lots of courage and power and make good runs with the ball. They are always capable of scoring two or three goals. On top of that, they defend with a lot of intensity.

...Stuttgart coach Pellegrino Matarazzo: I actually did my aptitude test as part of a coaching course alongside Pellegrino Matarazzo. I have gotten to know him as a very open and good man. He’s a really pleasant colleague.

…the tactics in Stuttgart: We know that Silas Wamangituka will play down the right and he’s really dangerous in one-on-one situations. As a result, we will give certain tasks to our own players for Saturday. On the one hand, we want to negate their strengths, and on the other, we want to focus on our own game. After a week where we’ve trained well and had ample time to recover, we have the chance to put a similar team out to last week’s game against FC Bayern. However, we also have lads who didn’t start last week and arguably deserve a place in the side.

…training this week: You can’t replace training, so we’re pleased to have had the time to go out on the training ground and work on things. This will help the cohesion in our game. We’ve got another important game this time against VfB Stuttgart and we need to take what we’ve worked on in training onto the pitch on Saturday. We need to keep going, especially after the win over Bayern.

…Hannes Wolf’s role: Hannes is training well and is looking good. He’s always somebody that we consider for the team. Once the games start piling up again, Hannes will get his chance to start some matches. We spoke last week about the current situation and he’s obviously not satisfied. We also discussed his time at Borussia so far. He arrived here, had a good pre-season, but then things didn’t go as well, although he then won us the game against Leipzig with an outstanding performance.

…Jordan Beyer’s future: We have had a few conversations with Jordan and we ultimately decided that he’ll stay at Borussia. The first six months weren’t easy for him, but he’s now getting into a rhythm. We’ve got a number of midweek games coming up and we’ll need him once somebody is out. We believe in him and we’ll just have to see how much game time he gets.

…Mamadou Doucouré: Mams came to training with a slight knock just before Christmas. After that, we said that he should have a little break and then come back with a clear head, because he’s invested a lot of hard work into getting fit over the past few months and years. We speak to him regularly and he’ll be back soon. Hopefully then he’ll be back involved with a smile on his face.

…rumours of Florian Neuhaus leaving: Flo is an unbelievable footballer. He will go his own way. He’s a clever guy and has good people around him. He will develop a feeling and ultimately make the right decision regarding his future.