FC St. Pauli

Timo Schultz on...

...the personnel situation: "The squad is identical to the one against Kiel. Luca Zander and Christopher Buchtmann have been under the weather but I'm assuming they can resume training today, if not we'll find a different solution. Eric Smith is OK. He took a whack on the back and couldn't sprint fully anymore but was back to normal the day after the Kiel game. We're hoping Sebastian Ohlsson and Jannes Wieckhoff can train in part with the group again, and Jackson Irvine is also making good progress. The same can't be said for Etiennne Amenyido and Igor Matanović. We're going to be careful with them and won't take any risks. The medical department are working very hard so we might have one or two of them back next week."

...the return of the fans: "I saw the lads before the game pointing to their ears and shaking their heads. It really was superb. I was hoarse afterwards, but I'll take that. The effect the fans had on the game shows the couple of percent difference it can make. We missed that last season."

...the stability in defence: "You could see a trend after the winter. In Jakov Medić, we've gained someone who contributes with his strength in the tackle. But that goes for the entire team and their desire to press the ball from the off. That has to be our objective every week. It's a step forward we took in pre-season."

...Simon Makienok's role: "If we were to play with a lone striker, he could operate as a target man up top. But Simon's a good footballer and interprets the position in a two-man attack in his own way. He absolutely deserves it given his pre-season and was a major factor why we played so well against Kiel."

...his attacking options: "Simon Makienok, Maximilian Dittgen or Lukas Daschner are all different types of striker, so we may switch things round depending on who we're playing. I'm glad we're so well placed and have so many options."

...player development: "You can improve in every area. In general, we made good progress over the course of last season, but there's still room for improvement in our transitional play on winning possession. You always have to be realistic in your analysis, it doesn't all happen in a couple of training sessions."

Photos: Witters