Agu ruled out for Stuttgart away

SV Werder Bremen will hope to build on the momentum of last week's derby win as they travel south to face fourth-place VfB Stuttgart at 15:30 CEST on Sunday, 26th April. He gave the latest update on the state of SVW's squad ahead of the matchday 31 clash.

Leonardo Bittencourt and Marco Grüll each received their fifth yellow card of the season during the game against Hamburger SV, and so the pair are both unavailable to face VfB. In addition, Thioune will be forced to go without Felix Agu, who is still struggling with muscular problems. "It's been a tough year for Felix, as he's been dealt a number of different injury blows - he's been trying to push his limits over recent weeks," said the head coach. "It's likely that he'll be able to make it back into the squad before the end of the campaign, and start getting some minutes under his belt again." Jens Stage, whose workload was carefully managed this week, is expected to be fit to play come Sunday.

Karl Hein (thumb injury), Julian Malatini (syndesmosis ligament tear in the ankle), Wesley Adeh (ligament injury), Keke Topp (ACL) and Mitchell Weiser (ACL) remain sidelined. The latter, however, is expected to return to team training soon. “The transition back into full training is still its own process,” Thioune explained. “What matters is that we neither push him nor Mitchell pushes himself. Three weeks is a very small window, but we’d be delighted to see him feature again.”

On a positive note, captain Marco Friedl will return to the squad in Stuttgart after serving his suspension, and Maximilian Wöber is once again an option in central defence. “I now have a wealth of choices in that position,” said Thioune regarding his line-up. “It will be a tough decision choosing who doesn't get to start – but that’s a blessing compared to a few weeks ago when I had to worry about who I could even field.”