Seoane: “We’re not going to deviate from our path”

Gladbach head coach Gerardo Seoane spoke to the press ahead of Saturday’s (18:30 CET) visit to RB Leipzig. Here are his most important quotes.

Head coach Gerardo Seoane on…

…the squad: Jordan, Robin Hack and Florian Neuhaus, who either weren’t training at all at the start of the week, or were on a reduced schedule and whose fitness was therefore questionable, were back in training on Thursday. Alassane Plea has had some pain in his foot for three weeks which is restricting him a bit. But Lasso’s doing everything he can to train and get back to 100%. He’s certainly in better shape physically than he was last weekend and he’ll be available for a longer period of time in Leipzig.

…this weekend’s opponents: Leipzig haven’t had the results they were hoping for in the last few games, but have nevertheless showed good performances. The team have had plenty of chances to score but, as was the case on Tuesday against Real Madrid, the efficiency just isn’t there. For me, Leipzig are one of the best four teams in the Bundesliga. They have a clear shape, and when they’re on the attack they play with high intensity and a lot of dynamism. They have an enormous amount of individual quality, too. We have a big challenge ahead of us.

…his side’s plan for the match: It’ll definitely be an entirely different task on Saturday to last time out against Darmstadt, more comparable with the previous games in Leverkusen and Munich. We have to do everything we can not to get hemmed in and get a certain level of control over our positional play if we want to cause our opponents problems. We’ve been more solid in defence lately, which has come at the expense of our attack a bit. Against Darmstadt, we weren’t very precise on the counter and in passing play. We have to improve in that area.

…the current position in the table: From the start, it was clear what we had ahead of us, and we’re not going to deviate from our path. I’m not looking too much at the table and our points total. We’re aware of our situation, so we haven’t starting doing the maths. We’re concentrating on what’s relevant: training and the performance at the weekend. We’re focusing on the next task.

…the composition of the back three: Starting with Nico Elvedi, Ko Itakura and Max Wöber again is an option. The composition of our defence depends however on the players’ form and performances in training, as well as the opponent. We have a lot of centre-backs and full-backs available at the moment. That’s a good situation to be in. Now it’s about making good decisions in terms of the line-up.

…Rocco Reitz’s condition: Rocco is still a young player. He’s had a lot thrown at him this season, and he’s also experiencing this kind of high intensity for the first time in his career. We’ve therefore been managing his workload a bit, both in training and in games. That means we’ve been able to keep him fit, along with Manu Koné. Rocco has looked fresh again this week.

…the possible returns of Jonas Omlin and Tomáš Čvančara: Jonas has been partially integrated. He can basically do everything again, just not to a full extent. It’s done him good to be able to train together with the team again this week. He still has to be integrated, which will take a bit more time and patience. And he’ll be given this time. Tomáš has been back running in training and will now make the next steps with the ball. I’m not expecting though that he’ll be able to train with the team again within the next two weeks.