Pellegrino Matarazzo on…
…the match in Bremen: “The Weserstadion awaits us with a very intense atmosphere. The team look for a direct route to goal, we’ll have to absorb that intensity. We need to do what is required in order to be victorious. Bremen have won their last two home matches, but we’ve also been successful away so far. The team that brings more to the game always has an advantage in the Bundesliga. The league is even, there’s never a clear favourite.”
…the current away form: “I do not see any reason why we’ve been performing so strongly away in recent weeks, statistically it’s also not relevant for me yet. I do not differentiate between the performances at home and away.”
…the match before the Bundesliga break: “It’s always good when you go into the international break on the back of a positive performance and a good result. Every win does us good and that’s our goal for the game on Saturday.”
…the lessons from last season: “There’s no matchday where the three points are worth more than in other weeks. Every point is enormously important for us and we approach every game with this in mind, regardless of the opponent’s name. We’re on a good path. We need unity. There’s no one pattern that leads to success. That’s an important point that we’ve taken away from the last few months.”
…Dennis Geiger: “Things are progressing in small steps. He’s working with the ball and on the pitch in the rehab process. It’s not yet possible to predict when he will be able to rejoin team training. We hope it will be in the next few weeks.”
…Wout Weghorst’s role in the game: “Wout is a player who does an extreme amount of defensive work and presses like a madman. He holds up balls from us well and is a super target man. We’re also aware of his goal threat, even though he hasn’t scored yet. But that is only a matter of time.”
The personnel situation:
Dennis Geiger and Stanley Nsoki remain sidelined. Bambasé Conté and Marco John have both partially returned to training and are set to make a full return next week. Pavel Kadeřábek and Wout Weghorst rejoined training on Wednesday and are options for the match. Andrej Kramarić suffered a bruised thigh in the match against Dortmund on Friday and is a doubt for the game in Bremen.
The opposition’s form:
Werder have picked up six points from their first six league games. Last week, Ole Werner’s team succumbed to a 4-2 defeat to promoted outfit SV Darmstadt 98.
Head-to-head record:
TSG have won seven of the 28 meetings in the Bundesliga, while Bremen have emerged victorious 11 times. But TSG have not lost a match in Bremen since April 2014 and since that last defeat, there have been three victories for Hoffenheim on the Weser.