Seoane ahead of #BMGVfB: “That’s our biggest source of motivation”

Head coach Gerardo Seoane answered media representatives’ questions at the press conference ahead of the Foals’ home game against VfB Stuttgart on Sunday (17:30 CET). Here are his most important quotes.

Head coach Gerardo Seoane on...

...the squad situation: Jonas Omlin, Lukas Ullrich, Maximilian Wöber and Ko Itakura are all unavailable for the game. Itakura is at the Asian Cup, Wöber’s suspended and also ill, and Ullrich and Omlin are still injured. Tomáš Čvančara is also still a doubt. He couldn’t do much in the first week of training because of injury. He’s recently been able to train individually again and took part in team training today. We’ll weigh up after the final training session whether it makes sense to include him. Every other player trained today.

...the winter preparation and the many goals conceded in the first half of the season: During a break, it’s about working on the physical side and combining that with our idea of how we want to play football and defend. Everyone knows that we've conceded a lot of goals, but I don’t think that there’s an easy way to tackle that within 10 days. We’ve also tried a lot of things to counter this already, but it’s also the case this season that we’ve often given teams the chance to score against us far too easily, even in games where we’ve mostly defended well and left very few holes. We need to improve on that, but it’s not easy to remedy in this short period of time.

...the centre of defence: We have four central defenders available after the return of Tony Jantschke and can also play in different systems. We can also add Joe Scally to this, as he can also play at centre-back in a hybrid position. We can do that no matter who the opponent is. I’m happy that Tony’s back in the squad, as he’s helped the team a lot in the past 10 days with his experience and attitude in training. Fabio Chiarodia has also made yet more progress.

...the next opponents: Stuttgart have a clear style of play and when all their players are available, they have a lot of quality in their squad. You can add to that a coach whose style suits the team well. They are where they are because they play good football and stay very compact in every phase of play. If they stay at this level, they could stay in the European spots until the end of the season. Of course they’ll miss Guirassy in the next few games, but with Undav they have another good striker in their ranks. They can also call on other types of player like Millot.

... VfB Stuttgart’s wingers: Analysing the opposition’s players and setting up our boys up according to that is part of preparing for a Bundesliga match. It’s not an easy task to defend against both of VfB’s wingers, as their playing style involves frequent runs in the final third, which will be demanding on our full-backs.

... excitement for the return of the Bundesliga: We’re looking forward to every Bundesliga game. All the head coaches would’ve definitely preferred to have had another week to prepare, in order to get a clearer picture of their team’s fitness levels. The boys have made a good impression after a relatively short break, and I’m pleased that we have more players available for selection again. We’re happy to be kicking off the new year with a home game – that’s our biggest source of motivation.

... Jordan’s current condition: He had to stop training with the team in December and started working individually earlier than the rest of the boys after the break. You could tell that he had been away for a period of time, but he started to get more into the swing of things in the second week as each day went by. Although he probably isn't at 100 percent yet, his standard is good enough to be able to help the team.