„Have to find the right solutions“

After one point from the first two league games of the season, VfL Wolfsburg have their eyes on all three against FC Schalke 04 this Saturday, 20 August (kick-off 15:30 CEST). While the Wolves lost 2-0 at Bayern Munich last Sunday, S04 – who began the campaign with defeat to Köln – rescued a late point in a 2-2 draw at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach. However, the Green-and-Whites have become something of a bogey team for the Royal Blues in recent years, with Schalke losing each of the last four meetings between the teams in all competitions and failing to score in the last three. In his pre-match press conference on Thursday, the VfL coach answered questions from journalists on…

…team news: “Patrick Wimmer is out of the match on Saturday after a collision in training on Wednesday. Jonas Wind and Yannick Gerhardt are also absent.”

…opponents Schalke 04: “Schalke are a side who work in a very structured way, they’re good without the ball and play a lot of long balls. On top of that you get a lot of crosses from the left and right, from pretty much every position. With that it’s about standing your ground and defending safely. We then have to make sure we find the right solutions, which we worked on well in pre-season and now need to put into practice in the game.”

…the game in Munich: “I’ve watched the match again and I thought we did well for large parts of the first half – not only up until the first goal, but also up until the second it was okay. What you then lack when you’re 2-0 down at half-time away to Bayern is the belief that you can still turn it around. We saw a good second half against Bremen and a good half against Bayern – now we need to combine that and make sure we take the lead and maintain it for longer. That makes it much easier to play than when you’re always trailing behind.”