week 15 - match preview

"Attack Bochum early", demands Slomka

Just three days after the draw in Valencia the Royal Blues face another difficult task on Saturday (kick-off: 1530 CET). Local rivals VfL Bochum visit the Arena full of confidence after three wins in a row, having scored ten goals in the process.

"The fans can look forward to an interesting game", said Mirko Slomka. The Schalke boss left no one in any doubt as to who would leave the pitch victorious at the end of the 90 minutes, though, saying: "We want to win, that's obvious."

Slomka has respect for the visitors after their recent run of form. "They started well and then went through a bad patch, but after changing their system, amongst other things, they've played some good football", he explained. "Bochum have a compact defence, two solid holding players in Christoph Dabrowski and Daniel Imhof, and in Joel Epalle and Stanislav Sestak two dangerous strikers who we are going to have to watch very closely.

The Schalke boss prefers not to think about Schalke's most recent encounter with Bochum. "After dominating the game and going 1-0 up away from home, we ended up losing 2-1. We can't let that happen again." Slomka warned his players not to be complacent, demanding a focused performance from the first to the last minute: "We need to be wide awake and awake Bochum early."

René Renno looks set to keep goal for the visitors once again. The 28-year-old came in for the injured Jan Lastuvka four weeks ago and has since established himself as the regular keeper. Bochum have won three games in a row with him between the posts. Slomka knows all about Renno, however. "He was my goalkeeper when I was at Tennis Borussia."

In terms of squad selection there are no changes compared with the Champions League game in Valencia. Soren Larsen (thigh problems) is definitely ruled out, while Christian Pander is more than doubtful. Although the left-back came through training pain-free this week, Slomka believes the Bochum game has come around too soon for him. "Christian is more likely to feature in my plans for the match in Frankfurt next week."

Zlatan Bajramovic is likely to be fit, however. The Bosnian has been struggling with a bruised big toe recently. Definitely out are long-term absentees Gustavo Varela (muscle strain), Levan Kobiashvili (groin strain), Mathias Abel (cruciate ligament tear) and Markus Heppke (shoulder injury).