week 22 - match preview

Schalke out to win "tug-of-war" in Wolfsburg

FC Schalke 04 are looking to extend their winning run in the Bundesliga on Saturday. Yet head coach Mirko Slomka feels opponents VfL Wolfsburg are showing a "positive trend".

Slomka underlined his admiration for the Lower Saxony outfit with a few facts. "They beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 at home and drew 2-2 at Eintracht Frankfurt and Hannover 96. The warning signs are there, we know we have to adopt a cautious approach and maintain our focus for the whole 90 minutes", the 39-year-old coach said.

The Royal Blues are also interpreting another statistic as a warning. Wolfsburg have scored 20 league goals this season, but almost half of them, i.e. eight, have come in the first four games since the winter break. "With their two strikers Hanke and Klimowicz, their wide attacking midfielders Menseguez and Krznowek and with Marcelinho they have a much more potent strike force", said Slomka, attaching names to Wolfsburg's new attacking threat. "That obviously creates opportunities for us because we may get room to go forward, but initially we're going to have to be very competitive at the back to stifle any attempt by Wolfsburg to break through."

Here Slomka is placing his faith in the strengths his players have shown in recent weeks. "We had another look at the Hertha game and to put it in figurative terms it was like a tug-of-war: Hertha were very strong in the beginning, but in the second half we pulled so hard they fell over. When you look at it like that the victory was almost better than the win in Bremen." The Schalke boss is expecting a similar tussle in Wolfsburg. "The game will again develop as a process. But we have the quality to achieve our objective and win in Wolfsburg as well."

In their bid to do so the Royal Blues will be without long-term casualties Gerald Asamoah, Christian Pander, Soren Larsen, Gustavo Varela, Markus Heppke and Ralf Fährmann, though Levan Kobiashvili has recovered from his toe injury and is available.