Boys in Brown hoping for more of the same at Nienburg after bouncing back in midweek
Saturday, 27. November 2021, 10:00 Uhr
A busy week began with a trip to promotion challengers Darmstadt last Saturday and ends with another outing to a chasing side in Nürnberg on Sunday (13.30 CET). The Schultz XI aim to build on a decent performance against Sandhausen in midweek and return home with at least a point.
"It was important to show a reaction after the 4-0 defeat at Darmstadt," said skipper Philipp Ziereis after the 3-1 home win in the rearranged fixture against Sandhausen. The Boys in Brown did that in impressive fashion, the first half being among the best 45 minutes of football they have played this season. "We wanted to put the Darmstadt game behind us and take the fans with us from the start, and we did that perfectly in the first half", added Marcel Hartel. It may not have been entirely perfect, to be fair, as the finishing could have been better in the first half, resulting in some jitters after Sandhausen had pulled one back until Daniel-Kofi Kyereh notched his second goal of the evening to make it seven wins out of seven at home this term.
The victory sees the Boys in Brown go to Nürnberg as league leaders. After a long battle against relegation last season, the home side are having a good season so far and will take some beating. Nürnberg sit fifth on 24 points thanks to an incredibly mean defence that has shipped just 12 goals in 14 matches and kept a clean sheet every other game. Robert Klauss's side went 12 league games unbeaten until the end of October before slipping to three defeats in succession against Darmstadt (2-0), Bremen (2-1) and HSV (4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the DFB Cup) but returned to winning ways last time out with a 2-1 success at Sandhausen courtesy of two late goals.
Both teams go into the game on the back of victories over Sandhausen, then, and Sunday's game also pitches the best defence in the league against the second-best attack. The home side will be a tough nut to crack and the Boys in Brown will have to come up with solutions for breaching the Nürnberg rearguard. "It's a tough ask but we go there full of optimism," said head coach Timo Schultz at the pre-match news conference, with some justification, too, as his team brushed themselves down after crashing at Darmstadt and produced an excellent performance to secure all three points against Sandhausen. On Sunday, they will want to show the same energy, passion and elan to add at least one more point to their tally.
Photos: Witters
