The battle for places heats up
Posted by werdernews on April 4, 2008
The Green-Whites are looking to return to winning ways in the Bundesliga when they take on Hertha BSC this weekend in Berlin and one possible guarantor for that could well lie in the battle for places, which has heated up in light of the number of previously injured players who are again available: “We have a different situation now to the one that we’ve had for about 85% of the season. We have 25 or 26 players available now from which I have to choose 18. Everyone knows that he gets stuck in or gets left out”, commented Thomas Schaaf, who sees the personnel situation positively.
“Everyone has to give a little extra, not just those who are looking to get back in the squad. Those in the starting eleven will have to improve on what they showed the previous week – which means every player from number 1 to number 40 in the squad”, explained Schaaf, and the trainer saw just how serious these opinions are being taken out on the training pitch in the past few days. It may be of some assistance, albeit a little disappointing, that Werder are now in a position to focus 100% on the Bundesliga: “Now that we are out of the cup competitions we have more time to train but that doesn’t mean we’re being barricaded in”, remarked team captain Frank Baumann.
In order to make perfect use of the situation, Thomas Schaaf intends to draw out the battle for places until the very last moment. Following the final training session on Friday afternoon, the coach will select his 18 man squad: “We will take everything into account, including the impressions made during the final training session”, concluded Schaaf. It could be a tough on a number of players after a hard week of training to find they haven’t made the cut.
source: werder.de
werdernews said
It seems that the following players where in the end chosen:
Tim Wiese, Christian Vander, Naldo, Patrick Owomoyela, Per Mertesacker, Clemens Fritz, Sebastian Boenisch, Petri Pasanen, Frank Baumann, Tim Borowski, Jurica Vranjes, Diego, Mesut Özil, Martin Harnik, Torsten Frings, Markus Rosenberg, Hugo Almeida, Ivan Klasnic.
The most important players left outside the squad are Sanogo and Hunt.
werderfan said
any reason why sanogo is left out? he wasn’t reported to be injured…
werdernews said
Well there are several. Last week against Duisburg it was Almeida left outside the squad. This happens because now Werder has almost the entire squad available and also several attacking options. For todays match we can play in attack with Rosenberg, Klasnic, Rosenberg or Harnik. Also in the last training session, Sanogo didn’t do wright a training exercise and Schaaf made sure his player understood that giving him a lecture. Maybe this was also at fault for today’s omission for Sanogo.