FC St. Pauli

...the injury situation: "Etienne Amenyido and David Nemeth are making progress, but for me it's important to ease them back in gently rather than put pressure on them in their return to fitness. Jakov Medić is fine as far as it goes and will train again today. The players who’ve been away on international duty all returned yesterday, including Jackson Irvine and Connor Metcalfe, who landed in the evening. They're both OK and so I'm assuming they'll train today."

...the craving for more wins: "First of all, we aren't going to judge ourselves by what we've done in the past. We want to judge ourselves by what I think we're capable of, what the players themselves think they're capable of, and what they can achieve. We need to be more consistent in our performances and that's why we're concentrating on the football side of things. I'll keep coaching, coaching, coaching. The performances at Sandhausen and in the friendly against Hannover were decent but there was also room for improvement, albeit only details, though they can make a big difference. Even if we win ten games, there's always something we can do better. I try to keep the lads wanting more. I've said several times that we're in a process and there are lots of things we can do better. I've made that point to the lads as well, i.e. that we're still some way short of where we want to be and what we think we're capable of, so it's not a question of being greedy for me."

...the chance to intervene in the promotion race: "It’s a huge gap to the top, so I don't want to talk about that at all. My job is to drive the development process forward and keep improving the team. We can put the calculator to one side for now. The important thing is to concentrate on the football and win matches, which is why I caution against thinking too far ahead. The next game is the only one that matters and it's against Regensburg. We want to take another step forward, which will be difficult enough. We want to take that step together and then we can focus on the next one."

...opponents Jahn Regensburg: "They've found their feet again after their winless run. That shows their desire to fight and stay in this league. They're very aggressive and can hurt teams. Nevertheless, we want to be dominant. I'm expecting another evenly balanced, tough game because Regensburg have performed very well in the last few games. They're a team who have two or three situations per half in every game where they're very dangerous, be it from set pieces, where they're so strong, or in transition. They have individual quality in Sarpreet Singh and the two target men, Andreas Albers and Prince Osei Owusu."

...Regensburg's long-ball style of football: "The focus throughout the second half of the season has been on control and taking up good positions in possession to ensure we give teams as few opportunites to break and score as possible. Regensburg do that very well. The full-backs push forward on the counterattack, not just the wingers, and they get the ball into the box relatively quickly. For us it'll be important to keep a good shape in possession, as we have done recently. If we press well when we're near the ball and take up good positions when we're further away from it, we can stop certain things happening."

Photos: Witters