"St. Pauli are a great team. The way they play is good. They defend high and play aggressively. Their last few games have also been impressive," said Kasper Hjulmand at the pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon. The Kiezkicker, currently 17th in the table, recently beat VfB Stuttgart. Points against RB Leipzig (1-1) and Hamburger SV (0-0) are also among the FCSP's most recent results. Hjulmand therefore expects another "difficult game" on Saturday, as he did almost a fortnight ago in the DFB Pokal quarter-final (3-0).
Hjulmand: "critical because we are ambitious"
When asked about the long week of training, the Dane said: "We needed the time to talk about the different phases of our game. How we defend, how we handle the ball and what our attacking play should look like. We certainly won't always be able to play what I like to call 'champagne football' for 90 minutes. Because it will certainly be a combative game. But we will step on the gas and are ready to take a step forward in terms of our quality."
Regarding the criticism of past performances, Hjulmand added: "We are still in all three competitions and have a good chance of achieving our targets. That's the positive thing. But of course we are critical because we are ambitious. We are in a phase where we are learning to stand together as a team. We are very focussed on playing our best game. The criticism is completely okay. We are probably our own biggest critics."
Maza returns – Trio still sidelined
As valuable as the full week of training was, it remains the only one for the time being. The Werkself have another phase with a flurry of fixtures ahead of them. Hjulmand on the next run of games: "We'll be going full throttle. I love these phases, the games are the best. The team are ready for them and, as always, we need all the players."
The players available on Saturday against FC St. Pauli include Ibrahim Maza while Mark Flekken, Nathan Tella and Eliesse Ben Seghir are still sidelined. Hjulmand on Maza: "He's ready and has trained all week. He has made a lot of progress. He's very good one-on-one with his moves in the game. He's also versatile and understands our game. He's very important for us - but so are all the other players!"
full house at the BayArena
The BayArena is sold out on Saturday. The visitors will have the support of 3,000 travelling fans.
