Six players absent as preparations begin for Union Berlin

The Foals began preparations for Sunday’s match away at league leaders Union Berlin (15:30 CET), but were without six players due to injury.

Following a warm-up session inside Borussia’s new Performance Centre, the Foals took part in a 90-minute session on the training pitch. Florian Neuhaus (partial ACL rupture), Ko Itakura (partial MCL rupture) and Hannes Wolf (labrum tear in shoulder joint) did not take part, as did Jonas Hofmann (dislocated shoulder) and Yann Sommer (ankle injury). Torben Müsel (muscle injury) took part in an individual running session.

Slim chances of Hofmann and Sommer making the squad

Hofmann also completed a running session yesterday. “For Jonas to be able to run already is a good sign. He didn’t take part in today’s session. With every day that goes by, it’s looking less likely that he might be an option for Sunday. If there’s a chance of him making the matchday squad, then we would certainly take it,” said head coach Daniel Farke. A possible return for Yann Sommer is looking unlikely as well. “His ankle is still swollen, which is actually a good sign because it means that it’s healing well. It could go down quite quickly, but as of today he won’t be in the squad against Union,” said Farke.

Koné suspended

Stefan Lainer could also miss Sunday’s game against the league leaders, after testing positive for Covid-19. “Stevie had the stomach flu over the weekend, and has now tested positive. His CT values are still quite low, so it could be tight when looking at whether he can feature this weekend,” said Farke. Manu Koné definitely won’t feature on the weekend, as he serves a suspension after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season against Frankfurt (3-1 defeat). When asked how the team will deal with the many absences, Farke said: “We will use this week to try out some different combinations. It could be the case that we make some like-for-like swaps, but we might also just change our formation to suit us.”

Two more open training sessions coming up

The Foals will train again on Thursday and Friday (both at 10:45 CEST), with fans welcome to attend these two sessions. The team will train behind closed doors on Thursday afternoon (15:45 CEST, in the Performance Centre) and Saturday afternoon (15:45 CEST).