Hjulmand ahead of #FCSPB04: ‘Valuable week of training’ ahead of St. Pauli away

"It will be a difficult game and we need our best performance if we want to win the game. We're very excited and ready," said Kasper Hjulmand at the pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.

St. Pauli are currently in good form and are fifth in the table on seven points. FCSP only suffered their first setback on matchday 4 with a 2-0 defeat at VfB Stuttgart (0:2). Prior to that, they picked up two wins and a draw from their first three games - a club record. "St. Pauli are a good team and Alexander Blessin is doing a great job there. He's also shown that before at Union St. Gilloise," said Hjulmand about this weekend's opponents.

Hjulmand: "we are in a good process"

The team will complete their final training session in the afternoon before travelling to Hamburg. It was Hjulmand's first full week of training with the Werkself. Hjulmand said: "The week of training was very valuable. We were able to focus on specific things in the sessions - for example pressing, defensive work and the structure of our game in general. It's very important for us to understand the qualities of each player and that they all get to know each other even better. We are in a good process and if we keep the quality as high and communicate well in the future, it will get better and better. We are very optimistic and we have a great team with good players."

Martin Terrier is not an option for the clash at FC St. Pauli. On Nathan Tella, Hjulmand said: "We’ll have to see today, a player like him is very important for our game." On Jeanuel Belocian, who was on the bench against FC Copenhagen and Borussia Mönchengladbach following his recent injury, Hjulmand said: "First of all, he's ready, which makes us very happy. He’s a player who can play in many positions. He's very aware and he's nice to work with. He’s ready to play but not for 90 minutes."

3,000 Werkself Fans at the game

The Werkself can look forward to the support of 3,000 Bayer 04 supporters at St. Pauli. Fans unable to be at the match can watch it on Sky and DAZN (live highlights). As usual, Werkself Radio will also be broadcasting, with commentary provided by Niko Hartmann and guest commentator Falko Götz.