Doubts over Jensen and Almeida

The manner in which the Werder players should be approaching the up-coming Bundesliga clash with FC Bayern Munich is quite clear. Learn from their mistakes, put Famagusta behind them and head off confidently towards Munich, where they will clash with Bayern on Saturday, 20.09.2008 (kick-off 3:30pm).

Mesut Özil feels the match against the German champions has come at just the right time: “We’re looking forward to the Bayern game. They have good individual players, but we are well aware of what we are capable of too,” said the 19 year old, who has set his sights on getting another chance in the starting eleven, as against Anorthosis: “I want a place in the first eleven and that’s why I give my all week in, week out.” Diego considers the roles in the North-South derby to be clearly appointed: “In a top match like this the chance of winning is always 50-50. It’s a difficult game for us but it won’t decide the championship.” The Brazilian playmaker did note though that improvements will have to be made if they are to better the meagre turn-over of just one win in the first four games.

To add to Werder’s woes, both Hugo Almeida and Daniel Jensen are carrying knocks and look doubtful for Saturday’s game. Trainer Thomas Schaaf explained: “They are both questionable for Saturday. Daniel took a blow to the ankle and Hugo has a back problem.” Both players missed training on Thursday afternoon. On a more positive note, captain Frank Baumann has recovered from his back problem and was able to return to training, as was Perti Pasanen, who recovered from a cold and has been back amongst his team mates since Monday.

source: werder.de

Allofs: To criticise the attitude would be too shallow

Even on Wednesday morning, the players and those responsible at Werder Bremen were still clearly marked by the disappointment of the previous evening’s draw with Famagusta. For general manager Klaus Allofs, exactly that was a positive sign: “It has nothing to do with having the wrong attitude, thinking that would be too shallow. The fact that there is still a sense of disappointment in the changing room is proof that, in our search for a reason for the result, we certainly don’t need to doubt the will of the team,” explained the 51 year old, who had made himself exclusively available to take questions from the press.

Allofs went on to once again underline his criticism of the team that, at the moment, they are not capable of dominating potentially weaker opponents to such an extent that it is mirrored in the results: “We are doing exactly the opposite at the moment, we are strengthening weaker teams. In Gladbach they had made a poor start and were living in fear of their own crowd, but then we approached the game in such a way that we gave the opponent a boost. That was the problem yesterday too. Famagusta were here, playing in the Champions League for the first time. They had a lot of respect for us and we should have made better use of that. We should have made it clear that we were playing at home in the Weser Stadium and that we are the team with the experience of five years in the Champions League behind us.”

The Green-Whites have already begun repairing the damage: “We must now take something positive from the disappointment, improve things and move forward. During phases when things are not going quite so well, you’ve got to get stuck in, battle your way back and force your opponents into making errors. I am sure that we can bounce back.”

source: werder.de