Rose: "You can see the desire"

Marco Rose and Max Eberl spoke to the press ahead of Saturday’s derby in Cologne (15:30 CEST kick-off vs. 1. FC Köln), giving personnel updates, assessing the Foals’ next opponent and commenting on the points return in the Bundesliga so far this season. 

Marco Rose on…

Squad news: Marcus Thuram and Nico Elvedi had a little bug at the start of the week, but they’ve both recovered. Breel Embolo is back involved in team training sessions– he’s had a decent week, but we’ve not let him take part in all the drills yet. Obviously we want him to be available in Cologne on Saturday, but we need to be patient and exercise a certain degree of caution, so he won’t be an option to start on Saturday. We’re not expecting Denis Zakaria to return until after the international break. László Bénes is on his way to making a return to team training. 

Saturday’s opponents: I don’t think Köln’s game will be similar to ours, but that doesn’t mean to say that they’ll sit back – they will invest in the game and try to win. We’re expecting the hosts to be very aggressive, which we need to be ready to fight against. We didn’t play quickly enough against Union Berlin, didn’t make our opponents run around enough. We also lacked conviction going forward, that needs to be better on Saturday.  

The lack of fans in Cologne: It’s the explosiveness and the fans that we love about derbies, but at the end of the day we need to reassess the situation week by week. The corona pandemic means some grounds are allowing spectators while others aren’t. In Cologne, there won’t be any, and we have to accept that. 

Köln’s squad: Köln have let some players go and acquired some new players, but I don’t think we’re going to see a completely new-look 1. FC Köln side on Saturday. They kept their most important players and generally their new additions are like-for-like replacements in the positions of players who have left. In Ondrej Duda, they’ve acquired a player who can play in the number 10 role. 

The pressure ahead of the derby: The pressure on me is always the same. We work in an industry where you have to explain yourself after negative results. We’ve got fans who want to see the team win. Nevertheless, neither the opponent nor the current situation changes anything about the amount of pressure I feel under. I’m always trying to find a practical and clear path for us to take. Right now, we need to ask ourselves: Are we happy with one point from two games? No. Can we play better football than we have been playing? Yes. Have we played really badly so far? No. We have worked hard and you can see the desire. In future, we need to be more relaxed and trusting of each other on the day, which is what we’re trying to ensure at the moment. 

A potential Switzerland call-up for Breel Embolo: We’re in contact with the Swiss FA regarding the matter. Breel has been out of action for a week now and we’re being cautious ourselves as to whether he will even play against Köln on Saturday. So it makes very little sense for him to play international fixtures next week. Obviously we want to find the best solution for all, but the players’ wellbeing is the priority. 

Sporting director Max Eberl on…

The derby: Last year we won both games against Köln and had our first ever game behind closed doors against them as well. So we know what to expect. With no fans in attendance, it will be a derby with less emotion coming from the stands, and more internal motivation, which we need to show on Saturday. We want to win this game and need to show desire, not necessarily footballing brilliance. We want to reward ourselves with three points and get our season up and running.

Gladbach’s points tally: Every win has an impact, because every win shows that you’ve done something right. Every success means points in the bag. We’ve had two games so far, against Dortmund and Union Berlin, in which we’ve not been able to show our potential and collect anything more than a point. For this reason, a win against Köln would be amazing, but that won’t happen by talking about it – it has to come from our performance on the day. If we show what we can do, we’ve got every chance of winning the game.