“Be ready for a fierce encounter” | OneFootball

Dino Toppmöller on team news, the opposition and coping with a congested fixture list in the coming weeks.

Following Friday night’s spectacular 3-3 draw against Borussia Dortmund at Deutsche Bank Park, Eintracht Frankfurt have another tough encounter on Tuesday 13 January when they face VfB Stuttgart away (kick-off 18:30 CET). 

At the pre-match press conference, Dino Toppmöller discussed …

… team news: “Arnaud Kalimuendo has been with us for a couple of days now. He had a good debut against Dortmund and is definitely an option for the starting line-up. Ellyes Skhiri will return to the squad on Tuesday, and Farès Chaibi will be back with us for the trip to Bremen. Jean-Mattéo Bahoya has recovered and will be back in the squad.”

… his expectations of the game: “I’m expecting it to be a very hard-fought and intensive match. Stuttgart combine top-class football with physicality. They’re good at pressing, they’re aggressive at the back and defend well from the front. That’s how they won the game in Leverkusen – in the first half especially. We’ll have to be ready for a fierce encounter. We’ll need to match them physically and compete well in the tackles. We’re up there with Stuttgart among the leading teams in terms of tackles won. You always need to do the basics well, which we did against Dortmund. If you do that, you automatically get yourself into the game.”

… VfB Stuttgart: “They’re doing a great job in Stuttgart, across the board. They’ve got a very good team, a good coach, good transfers and a well-oiled team. [Angelo] Stiller is vital for them and he’s one of the Bundesliga’s best players, so we’ll need to be on guard there. The same goes for [Deniz] Undav up top, [Jamie] Leweling and [Chris] Führich out wide, and [Maximilian] Mittelstädt, who also gets involved well going forward. As a unit, we’ll need a strong defensive performance and a lot of energy.”

… Eintracht’s approach: “During our match preparations on Monday, we focused first and foremost on VfB’s recurring patterns – things they repeat again and again. Also what their strengths are and what weaknesses we can potentially exploit in attack. But before the game on Tuesday our sole focus will be on ourselves.”

… the workload in the coming weeks: “That’s certainly a factor to take into consideration. We had enough time after the Dortmund game to recover for Stuttgart, but we’ll have a day less to recover for Friday’s fixture. However, we’ll have Ellyes Skhiri and Farès Chaibi back for that one, so that gives us more options. If we want to play every game with the same kind of intensity, then we need a certain sharpness – both in our heads and in our legs. We’ll rotate the squad in the coming weeks.”