FC St. Pauli

Alexander Blessin on the injury situation...: “We have a full squad to choose from. We gave Manolis Saliakas a day off. It made sense from a workload point of view, but he resumed full training today and is available to play. Siebe Van der Heyden also trained in full.”

...the mood in the camp: “It’s obviously a special game. We know how important it is and want to widen the gap. The mood in the group has been good, but very focused. After tomorrow we’ll be well prepared to put in a good performance and get a good result.”

...the battle for places in attack: “Competition is good and every player feels he has a chance to be picked for the starting lineup, so it’s a luxury problem. Everyone has to do a bit more in training to get a game at the weekend – and there’s still a question mark even then. We want to get to a level in training where we can say we’ve made the best pick for the weekend.”

…Oladapo Afolayan: “I was really pleased to see him offer himself in that position and then have the courage to go through and score. It was an incredibly important goal and it did him good. He’s been bubbling with enthusiasm in training, which I’m really glad about.”

...Morgan Guilavogui: “We eased him back in over six weeks and now it’s a question of how quickly we can get him to full loading. It’s too early to talk of a place in the starting lineup against Kiel. Getting half an hour against Gladbach did him good and now he’s trained all week as well. I had a long chat with him about where he sees himself at the moment. He can definitely play for 45 minutes. We want to keep increasing his playing time. We’ll see how it looks on Saturday.”

...the opposition: “Kiel are a team who always like to play football, but in the home game they abandoned that approach a bit. I don’t think they’ll do it again. They play with intensity and never give up. They put a lot of emphasis on second balls. We have to get their front three under control because they rotate a lot in attack.”

...Hauke Wahl: “He reads the game well. When I wanted something from him at the start of the season, he tried to put into practice right away. I’m glad he adjusted so quickly, which is the sign of a highly intelligent player.”

...his state-of-mind going into the run-in: “I’m not a robot, so I have to be honest and say that tingling sensation is getting stronger and stronger. There’s always a tingle there but in the final phase it’s a bit more intensive, and it gets more the fewer games we have. There’s nothing bad about that but you have to be able to sort it in your mind. It’s nothing to do with nerves, but it still feels good to be raring to go and on it all the time.”

Photo: FC St. Pauli