Full concentration to see the year out!
The eventful year of 2021 is coming to an end – and the Bundesliga is reaching its halfway point before the winter break. There are just 11 days remaining for our Blue-Whites; 11 days with three important games on the cards and nine points up for grabs; 11 days where two things are of paramount importance: working hard and getting positive results! “We need to get the work done, no ifs, buts and maybes, keep our focus, and take the momentum from the Stuttgart game with us,” set out Tayfun Korkut, who made a point-scoring bow as head coach with a point in Stuttgart. “We fought our way back into the game well. The way we did that has put us in a good mood for the week’s training and the game against Bielefeld. I’ve seen a coherent squad.”
Activity, creativity and bravery
Following a day off on Tuesday – one of the last little breaks before the final push to Christmas – our head coach started on Wednesday morning with some video analysis at Schenkendorffplatz. “Against Stuttgart, we could see that the lads had taken the things we trained and thought about beforehand, especially when we had the ball. It all starts off with wanting the ball, and then bringing it forward together from defence, in order to get into shooting positions,” explained the 47-year-old head coach, who went over the key points of the upcoming training sessions: “The levels of activity, creativity and courage on the ball to come forward with the ball were all there. Now it’s about working on controlling games and defensive work. I’m sure we’ll get a handle on our compactness during the week.” Another point is working on defending set pieces: “We have changed from zonal to man-marking and used a mix of the two in Stuttgart. There were some issues here and there which we need to work on now,” said Korkut.
Mittelstädt out with a cold
There were a few players out at the start of the week, one being Maxi Mittelstädt who had a cold. As well as him, Lucas Tousart, Lukas Klünter, Rune Jarstein and Márton Dárdai all either sat out or took part individually. Suat Serdar, who was not present in Stuttgart due to a cold, returned to training with his colleagues. The icy temperatures and biting wind saw the lads do some tactical work to get the blood pumping, before working on finding ways through the defence under pressure on the small pitch – solutions which the Blue-Whites will surely use to get the perfect start to the end of the year with three points at home against DSC Arminia Bielefeld this coming Saturday (15:30 CET)!