FC St. Pauli

"We've tried to spread the workload this week," said Lienen two days before the final away fixture of 2016 at Greuther Fürth. The 63-year-old, who will be without the services of half a dozen players, including Robin Himmelmann, Christopher Buchtmann and Jan-Philipp Kalla, explained: "Though we've trained really well recently, we've left our aggression, tackling and energy on the training ground and haven't managed to reproduce it on the pitch at the weekend." The coaching team have therefore set peaks in workload and allowed for recovery time this week to ensure the players go into the game well prepared to battle for three points.

Asked about the current situation, which sees the team languishing in last place with just seven points from 15 games, Lienen said: "The attitude of the players is positive. We've worked hard and are ready to do everything we can to achieve the common objective. Lots of players are increasingly producing what we demand of them. We've taken some small steps forward but haven't managed any big ones yet. We continue to work on replicating that on the pitch. Everyone at the club, not just the players, is working very hard."

Lienen pointed out that under the three-point rule a run of two or three wins could put the team "in a completely new situation", as other teams had already demonstrated. Among them Greuther Fürth, who under new boss Janos Radoki have extended the gap to the drop zone from three to eight points after back-to-back 2-1 wins over Bielefeld and Karlsruhe.

Given that Fürth made a host of changes and employed different tactics in those two games, Lienen remains unsure about what to expect on Sunday: "At Karlsruhe last week they operated with gegenpressing, high compactness, lots of long balls and little build-up play of their own. It remains to be seen whether they'll play like that against us. We have to be prepared for everything." One thing Lienen does know is that Fürth play an extremely high tempo in attack. "In Khaled Narey, Veton Berisha, Sercan Sararer and Mathis Bolly they have four of the fastest players in the league," he noted.

Sunday's game will be Lienen's 400^th in charge of a German club (Bundesliga 1 and 2) but he has no particular wishes for his anniversary. "I just want the same as I did for our recent games. We want to win and pick up points," said Lienen, for whom nothing has changed over the years as far as the expectations and pressure to succeed are concerned. "You have to be able to deal with it, especially in phases like this one when you have no success and your backs to the wall," he concluded.

Photo: Witters