“We've really made great strides in the right direction.” | OneFootball

Oliver Glasner believes it's been a "really great first six months" but also sees "clear potential for improvement". He explains why in this exclusive interview.

Oliver, you'll probably be in Austria over the winter break to see friends and family. They're bound to want to know what it's like at Eintracht. What is it like?  It's great! I really like it, although my family and friends have all already been to Frankfurt. Not just for a game, they've visited the city too. So my family also really like it here and I obviously like it a lot too. We've managed to get back on track in sporting terms, which is obviously very important, and we've really made great strides in the right direction. Working with the team here is a great deal of fun, working at the club with everyone is a lot of fun, being with our fans in the stadium is a lot of fun, so it's been a really great first six months. That's great to hear. Eintracht didn't exactly burst from the traps. It was a bit similar during your time at Wolfsburg. You didn't score many goals, but didn't concede many and you had a lot of draws. Is it possible that teams need a bit of time to get to grips with the Glasner style of football? Or do other factors play a role? I'd like to say there are other factors, but this is my fourth job as a coach and every club needed a bit of time at first. We give the players an awful lot of information, perhaps a little too much every now and then. You could tell they were thinking a lot, and if you're thinking on the pitch you start to do things more slowly - and that was the case with us. I believe it's very, very important that the players understand why they're supposed to do something, because then it becomes their own choice. During a game, they then become players who make decisions. We often like to show them why it's good to be in a certain area and there's a great deal of thinking and less running involved at first. We're just starting to turn the corner a little now. There's more stored in the head and on the hard drive, they don't have to think as much anymore and the legs are doing a lot on their own, but there's still a lot of input we can give the players to make us even better.

As coach, how difficult was it to find a formation? You started with a back four in a 4-2-3-1, which became a 3-5-2 with two strikers. Now it's a 3-4-3, which I think you used for a long time at LASK. I've played every system in my career. Of course you also try to see what suits the players and the squad. Then there are players who are very versatile. Like Stefan Ilsanker, who can play centrally in a back three, as a centre-back and in defensive midfield. We have Timmy Chandler, who can play on the right, on the left, in a back four or even in a back five. And there are other players who are pretty much set in stone in terms of their position. We had to get to know each other properly first to find out what's best and what suits the players. Like Jesper Lindström near the end, making sure he's comfortable positioning himself between the lines. That was also relatively new for him, but it actually turned out pretty well in the end.

In what area do you feel the team improved the most - from your arrival in the summer compared to now? Definitely our offensive play. At first, it often wasn't very nice to watch - even for me. We had to work hard for everything, all because the players were thinking too much. It's a lot clearer now, a lot of things are more automatic, but I can still see definite room for improvement in every area.

That's a coach's motto, isn't it? You always want to improve! Exactly. That's also something I expect from the players. The only time I get angry is when I get the feeling they're just plodding along, rather than having that ambition to improve and the ambition to implement things, even when they don't come off. We wouldn't be sitting here under a lightbulb now, if someone hadn't tried it a thousand times before getting it to work. That's exactly what I want to see from the players.

Is there a player who surprised you during the first half of the season, Oliver?  No, I'm surprised in an extremely positive way by the characters, by the type of lads we have here. They're all great guys - even when I've left them on the bench, they still keep giving their all in training and never create a bad atmosphere in the dressing room, which is really great. Taking Makoto Hasebe as an example, I'm surprised in an extremely positive way by how professional he is. He didn't play for a while at the start, then I took him out of the team against Leverkusen and spoke to him. He always understands. If I say we need the goal on the edge of the penalty area, I don't even need to look: Makoto's already there, calling the others over to him. He's an absolute role model. I'm really pleased to have a player like that, to have had the chance to get to know him at his age and to be able to work with him.

Oliver, you now have the chance to wish Eintracht fans a quick Happy New Year and tell them what to expect next year. Now's your chance! Yes, I obviously wish you all a Happy New Year! Most of all, of course, I hope you all stay healthy and I can hardly wait to experience a full Deutsche Bank Park at last. It's often been very, very full, but never completely full. That's also one of my biggest wishes. Stay healthy, come back in numbers and keep supporting us, as you always have up to now. I also want to thank you for the positive reception you gave me here in Frankfurt, how patient you were with me and the team and how you always supported us, even when it wasn't going so well at first.