... the young players in the squad: “We’ve said before that we want to build a young squad who can develop further, but we also wanted to create value for the club, of course. When you look at the squad now, I think it’s a perfect mix of young players who can improve their game and experienced players. That was our goal, and it has to be the way we continue in the future. It’s even better that we’ve managed to extend Felix, Romano and Eren’s contracts here too. We’re also big fans of other youngsters, Mio Backhaus for example, who has performed brilliantly despite his young age – not just in our youth teams, but also in first-team training, where he finds himself regularly. He’s integrated himself into the group superbly, and the feedback from the rest of the squad is that they feel good with him on the training pitch.”

... current absences in the squad: “In terms of Corona, all our tests are negative – only Michael Zetterer is still in isolation at home. Following the Sandhausen game Manuel Mbom had an issue with his ankle and won’t train on Wednesday. Felix Agu should be able to return to training at the end of the week. Ömer Toprak, Marco Friedl, Milos Veljkovic and Mitchell Weiser will all take part in bits of training on Wednesday – they have all worked well with the fitness coaches, but we need to see how they deal with training. We don’t want to risk a longer-term injury with any of them by rushing them back.”

... the competition for places up front: “We know Eren Dinkci has a lot of quality, but we also have two unbelievable strikers who have done brilliantly over the course of this season in Marvin Ducksch and Niklas Füllkrug. With them there, it’s not easy for younger players to get game time, of course, but this season and even right now we’ve seen that you need every player by your side and we have to have a good and balanced squad. Eren wants to continue his career with us, which is something we’re delighted with. We’re with him all the way and we’re not planning to loan him out in summer.”