“These are the kind of tests we want”

Frankfurt preview

The team in a huddle
Ole Werner wants his side to show their quality against SGE (photo: nordphoto).
preliminary report
Saturday, 27.08.2022 / 10:00

This Sunday, Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt are coming to town. Although Oliver Glasner’s side have only picked up two points so far this season, Werder’s second home game will be far from easy, according to Ole Werner, who is fully aware of the physicality and strength of the opposition. The gaffer is, however, very much looking forward to the match: “These are the kind of tests we want. It’s another opportunity to present ourselves and show that we are capable of playing against such a physical team,” said the Werder coach in Friday’s presser.

On the squad: Ole Werner will have to do without Manuel Mbom (Achilles tendon), Eren Dinkci (muscular problems) and Dikeni Salifou (muscle injury) on Sunday. Although Mitchell Weiser and Marco Friedl missed Friday’s team training, they could both still feature against Eintracht. “At the moment, it looks as if both of them will be able to train tomorrow [saturday]. We’ll keep an eye on it but we are optimistic for tomorrow and for the match,” clarified Werner.

On Eintracht: “You have to always expect that your opponents will turn up. That’s how we prepare.  Eintracht are the reigning Europa League winners and they have a team full of power and full of individual quality. We’re facing a team with European experience and they are not to be taken lightly. I expect them to do well this year and show the quality that they did as a team last season sooner rather than later. It’s up to us to play our best and make sure that we delay their form for another week,” said the 34-year-old.

Previous success

Previous clashes: Sunday’s match will be the 103rd top flight meeting between the two sides. SVW have won 43 Bundesliga matches against Eintracht and have only beaten Schalke (45) on more occasions in the top flight. There have also been 23 draws and SGE have come out on top 36 times. The sides last met in the Bundesliga in February 2021 and Werder turned around a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1 thanks to goals from Theodor Gebre Selassie and Josh Sargent.

The good start: Werder Bremen have scored seven goals in the first three Bundesliga matches and only Bayern have scored more (15). The last time the Green-Whites scored as many goals after three games was back in 2011/12. SVW have exceed their expected goals by 4.4 goals (2.6 xG), and only Bayern have exceeded theirs by more (5.7, 15 goals at 9.3 xG).

Werner’s good start: Ole Werner is the first Werder coach to have not lost any of his first three Bundesliga matches since Thomas Schaaf in Mai 1999. Only Hans-Jürgen Dörner (1996, 2 wins, 2 draws) and Fritz Langner 1967 (3 wins, 1 draw) have so far gone their first four top flight games unbeaten.

Everything about the game: You can follow the live ticker on WERDER.DE from 16:30 CEST. The game will be shown live on DAZN and all WERDER.TV subscribers can watch the full game immediately after the final whistle.

 
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