“We have to keep nurturing the young plant”

With a fair amount of wind in their sails off the back of two consecutive wins, the Green-Whites will be hungry to taste victory once more as Mainz 05 head up to the Weser for a Sunday afternoon kick-off (15th March, 15:30 CET). Werder head coach Daniel Thioune sat down for his weekly press conference this morning ahead of the visit from the 05ers, going into detail on…

…the team’s confidence after two wins on the bounce: “If you play well and get results, naturally you start to develop more self-belief. No one was feeling like throwing in the towel when we went behind against Union, they were all convinced that we could turn it around and take all three points back to Bremen. It makes my job a lot easier when the team have trust in me and believe that we can work together and improve. I’m hopeful it will carry on this way, but we have to keep nurturing this young plant. It means putting in the effort needed to keep us on this track and improving every day.”

…backup players: “It does those players a lot of good when they feel like they’re being seen. I speak with everyone individually on a regular basis. How the guys feel about their roles is incredibly important. We need boys who lead from the front, and I want to guide the players so that they’re playing in the positions where they’re strongest.”

…possible shake-ups to the lineup: “Every week, the boys have the chance to prove to me what they’re capable of. Everyone who started in Berlin is fit for Sunday. If I have such a situation where I can make changes to the side, and there are players who will come in and make a difference, it’s a great place to be for a head coach.”

…options for the centre-forward role: “When Keke manages to bring his physical prowess to our game, he contributes a lot to this team, offering certain attributes that other guys don’t necessarily have. I’m confident that we have a lot of good times still to come with the player. We have other options for that position, of course. Marco Grüll can operate as a number 9, and he represents a more dynamic option in that spot. Justin Njinmah can do that as well. Ultimately, it will come down to what we think we’ll need in order to deal with Mainz 05.”

…the personnel situation in the backline: “Niklas Stark was training individually for a few days, but he wasn’t sitting out on the sidelines either. We’ll have to wait and see on that one. With Julian Malatini, though, I know I’ve got somebody who is ready to play and hungry for minutes too. He needs to focus on proving what he can do when he gets those shorter opportunities to play on the weekend. It’s not hard to see that our options are more limited, considering Amos Pieper, Max Wöber and Karim Coulibaly are all still out.”

…Mainz 05: “For me, they’re a really impressive side, especially since Urs Fischer came in as head coach. I don’t think too many people were expecting them to come back this strong, considering how few points they had at one stage of the season. They look really solid in the way they operate, and they set up very compactly. We know that’s how Urs Fischer likes his teams to play. The challenge for us is all about matching their level and then breaking them down by playing good football.”

…a matchup with a direct rival: “The pressure is still very much on, despite the couple of good results we’ve had recently. We all know how unsatisfied we and all the supporters were just a few weeks ago. We need to continue working on ourselves for that very reason, turning the pressure into something positive to allow us to keep picking up points. We’ve not accomplished anything yet, and every result is crucial. The focus is fully on each game as it comes, then, and in this case, it’s Mainz at home on Sunday.”