“We want to reward ourselves”

Having made his Bundesliga debut for the Billy Goats as a 19-year-old in December 2017, Chris Führich will be reunited with some familiar faces when VfB host 1. FC Köln on Saturday. “It happened very quickly back then,” said the attacker, reflecting on his top-flight bow five years ago. “Because a lot of players were injured at the time, I was thrown in at the deep end. I’m very grateful for that nowadays.”

Führich, who knows current Köln boss Steffen Baumgart from their time together at SC Paderborn 07, is second only to Serhou Guirassy (six) in the VfB scoring charts, having netted his fourth goal of the season with an eye-catching, long-range opener against SC Freiburg last weekend. “The result is frustrating – there was more in it for us in that game,” added the 25-year-old. “Our full focus is on the game against Köln. There’s pressure, but we have to deal with it. We’ll be backed by our fans and we’ll give it our all. We want to reward ourselves by securing important points.”

Göz Atın

Narrow defeat in Bremen

“Only got ourselves to blame”

“Looking forward to the challenge”