'Then it will be really hard for Werder'

The head coach on the game: "Werder Bremen are a good, settled side with a lot of very good individuals – above all in attack," said Peter Bosz in expectation of tough opposition on Sunday with the same desire to play on the front foot. However, the Dutchman does not see that as a reason to deviate from his own approach: "We always want to play attacking football. We did that against opponents like Fortuna Düsseldorf who like to sit back but also against teams like Mainz who played a very offensive game against us. We sometimes adjust our game but not our philosophy. We'll stick to our philosophy of playing on the front foot," added  the Werkself head coach. Bosz was unwilling  to predict the shape of Sunday's game. That mainly depends on how the team coached by Florian Kohfeldt performs at the BayArena. "If we play very well and apply real pressure then it will be really hard for Werder to play attacking football," said Bosz.

Team selection: A day ahead of the final pre-match session, all the Werkself pros took part in full training – including Joel Pohjanpalo. The Friday morning session was the first time the 24-year-old Finn has trained in eight months. "When you've been out for such a long time you obviously have to be a bit careful. He still needs time but he'll get that," said Bosz. It may also be too soon for a comeback for Panos Retsos, who returned to full training last week after three months out. Tin Jedvaj, who had to take it easy this week due to muscle problems, and Sven Bender, who trained on his own following the head wound he suffered against Freiburg, could be an option for the Bremen game. "It's possible. We'll have to see how he's doing tomorrow. But if all goes well then there is a possibility of him being in the squad," said the Dutchman with an eye on the final pre-match session tomorrow.

The referee: Deniz Aytekin will be in charge of the game against Werder. This will be the second time the FIFA referee has officiated a Werkself league fixture this term: The 40-year-old refereed the away game at Schalke (2-1) in December. The man from Oberaspach has already refereed 28 Werkself Bundesliga games – the qualified economist has not refereed any other club as often in his 158 Bundesliga matches to date. The assistant referees are Christian Dietz and Eduard Beitinger, The fourth official is Christian Leicher. Günter Perl and Patrick Alt are the video referees.

The previous fixture: Third against thirteenth – that was the state of play ahead of the previous game played on 27 October 2018 (a Sunday night) in front of a capacity crowd at Bremen's Weserstadion. The Werkself went into the game on the back of a 3-2 defeat away to FC Zürich with their confidence dented– and not many people would have predicted a third win of the season for Leverkusen after a run of three games without a win. Especially as Werder Bremen had only lost once in their first eight league fixtures and were unbeaten in their last 16 home games. But it all turned out against expectations: Tactically well organised and full of ambition in attack, the Werkself upped their game at Bremen and were, surprisingly, 3-0 up at the break thanks to goals from Kevin Volland (8'), Julian Brandt (38') and Karim Bellarabi (45'). The crowd witnessed an entertaining encounter in the second half as well. Bellarabi was unlucky when he hit the post just after the restart. Instead, goals from Claudio Pizarro and Yuya Osako put Bremen back in the game with 30 minutes to play. However, the Werkself found the right answer: Kai Havertz (67') and Aleksandar Dragovic (72') restored the three-goal lead before an own goal from Bremen's Sebastian Langkamp made it six for the Black and Reds on 77 minutes. The match ended in a 6-2 victory for the Werkself on a memorable night of football.