Alexander Blessin discusses options for reviving St. Pauli’s fledgling attack | OneFootball

St. Pauli prepare to host Hoffenheim Friday night in the 2024/25 German Bundesliga’s matchday 26 “curtain raiser”. For St. Pauli head coach Alexander Blessin, the main area of concern heading into the match remains his team’s fledgling attack. Blessin’s side have scored just one goal in their last five fixtures and with just 19 league goals this season, St. Pauli are dead last in the league.

A home fixture at the Millerntor doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for Hamburg’s Kiezkicker. The team has failed to score a goal in nine of their 12 home games this season. It took until the 12th matchday against Holstein Kiel for St. Pauli to score at home. The last time the club supporters were able to celebrate a goal was in a 1-1 draw against Augsburg on matchday 22.

Should St. Pauli fail to score against Hoffenheim at home on Friday night, the club will find themselves in wretched company. Three of the famously worst teams in Bundesliga history – Tasmania Berlin (1965/66), Werder Bremen (2019/20) and Greuther Fürth (2012/13) – are the only other teams to go 10 home games without scoring a goal over the course of a campaign.

Naturally, how Blessin planned to configure his attack was the subject of Thursday’s press conference. In the 1-1 draw against Wolfsburg last week, Danel Sinani worked behind a double-striker set of Noah Weißhaupt and Oladapo Afolayan. This did not produce a goal from open play, but exhibited plenty of potential.

Blessin hinted that he liked the system, yet was partial to giving Johannes Eggestein the nod over Afolayan. Elias Saad could also reprise his role as part of a three-pronged attack on the left-hand-side of Eggestein and Weißhaupt. Blessin opted to give both players a break against Wolfsburg last week. The coach left both options open.

“[Eggestein] lacked a little freshness, but he’s got it back now.” Blessin said. “So there’s no reason why he shouldn’t play from the start again. Of course Johannes Eggestein can also play in front of Danel in a double-pronged attack. He can hold the ball up in the box and distribute passes.

“We are happy to have both players,” Blessin noted in reference to Saad. “We’ll have to see which one of them can bring 101 percent to the pitch right now.”

GGFN | Peter Weis