FC St. Pauli

Fabian Hürzeler on…

...the personnel situation: "Everyone is fit to play apart from Luca Zander and the long-term absentees. We have another chat with the medical department lined up where we'll see what the final position is."

...his expectations for the warm-up game: "We want to continue putting into practice the things we've worked on during the week, such as our transitional play on winning possession. Saturday’s game is our dress rehearsal before the second half of the season kicks off and we want to give a good account of ourselves, both as a team and as individuals, and return to league action with a good feeling. We aren't going to experiment that much, instead we want to continue getting into our patterns of play and imposing our game on the opposition. That's what we're preparing for. Nürnberg aren't on our minds yet, only Saturday's warm-up match - we aim to win it and that's how we're approaching things."

...new signing Oladapo Afolayan: "He’ll add a certain flexibility to our attacking game. He likes to dribble and take people on and is assured on the ball. His passing technique is very good, as is his timing when it comes to where to pass the ball and when. He can also hold his own in direct duels and is very well-built. That's exactly what you need in this league and that's why he has all the attributes to make us more flexible in attack. He's a very ambitious player, he thinks a lot about football and questions lots of things. He always watches his performances back and actively approaches coaches to find out what he can do better. He's very determined and I'm looking forward to working with him."

...the results during the break: "Winning a warm-up game doesn't get you any points, but it does give you confidence and we need that. It's just a great feeling when you win. The team know I'm their biggest fan, but also their biggest critic. I’m not attaching too much importance to the friendly results because it's Nürnberg where the points are at stake and the lads know that. The warm-up games are primarily for rehearsing our patterns of play, the positions we have to take up and how we need to defend. Every warm-up game is a challenge of the type we might come up against during the second half of the season, and that's precisely why we want to have the best possible preparation."

...the focus in training this week: "Our play in the final third has been a special focus and we've worked on what we can do better there. We have to find simple solutions, the most beautiful solution is not always the best. Our goal against Gladbach was a good example of keeping things simple. We won the ball and then found the right moments to pass it, and that's where we have to improve overall, i.e. when do we pass to which player. These things are all about decision-making, about the right timing, about small things and details. That doesn't improve overnight, it's a process and that's what we tried to work on this week. We let quite a lot go at Gladbach."

Photos: Witters