“We need a perfect display” | OneFootball

Dino Toppmöller has called for his team to be compact, aggressive and deliver a strong performance in Saturday’s primetime clash with Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen visit Deutsche Bank Park in Saturday evening’s primetime Bundesliga clash, kicking off at 18:30 CET. At Friday’s pre-match press conference, Eintracht boss Dino Toppmöller spoke about… …personnel: “Along with Timothy Chandler and Ebu Bekir, Igor Matanovic also remains sidelined. Tuta is suspended because of his fifth yellow card. Robin Koch has trained and given the green light that he can start.”

…the task: “We’re facing a very difficult task. Leverkusen are a step ahead of us in their development, but that will count for nothing during the 90 minutes on Saturday. We want to show from the start that we’re up for the challenge. We need to be compact and aggressive when we close them down. If our opponents force us to defend deep once in a while, we need to find a way to manoeuvre ourselves to defend higher up the pitch again. We know we’re facing a side with enormous attacking strength, but we also know we’re capable of matching these kinds of teams at our home stadium with our fans behind us.”

…Eintracht’s approach: “Xabi Alonso has managed to instil a great mentality at Leverkusen, in addition to the tidy football they’ve always played. Against a side as strong as this, we need to bring our game to the pitch. That also includes duels, but we have to make our mark in the final third too. We saw in the corresponding fixture that we need a perfect 90 minutes in order to get anything. As I said, we know we’re going to need a perfect display. We need to be at the top of our game in all periods, be solid in defence and efficient in attack. We want to deliver the kind of performance we’ve delivered on so many occasions already.”

… Elye Wahi: “Elye made a big step in the right direction on the pitch in Munich [last weekend]. He held his own in difficult duels, held balls up and caused a threat to some degree, even if we weren’t in their box all that much. You could see he can add something to our game – something he has also shown in training. He’s getting closer to the starting XI.”