The season for the Bundesliga clubs with the DFB Cup starts in a good four weeks. At Werder Bremen, the preparation is more than bumpy.
Bundesliga club Werder Bremen imagined the start of the preparation. The north club has been back from the summer break and back on the training ground for ten days. Since then he has had to cope with some neck strokes. This affects three top performers: Marvin Ducksch (calf injury) was out immediately after the first training session, Jens Stage (foot injury) and Mitchell Weiser (cruciate ligament tear) were added shortly afterwards.
The next shock on Thursday morning: With Justin Njinmah, another offensive player had to stop training. In a duel, the 24-year-old bent and screamed in pain. Although he was able to appear again, he left the training ground limping. In the early evening the easy all -clear: As Werder announced, the wing player suffered a bruise, “only” will fail a few days.
Especially on the offensive, the shoe at Werder presses powerfully. With Stage (10 goals in the previous season), Ducksch (8), Weiser (5) and possibly Njinmah (3), four of the top 8 goal shooters of the pre-season will miss large parts of the preparation. Among them with Ducksch and Stage the two best strikers of the last season. While Weiser should fail until well into the next calendar year, Stage and Ducksch could be operational again at the start of the season – but there should then be at least a big question mark behind the fitness of the two top performers.
While everything seems in order on the defensive and, in addition to established top performers such as Niklas Stark, Marco Friedl or Felix Agu in Maximilian Wöber (Leeds United), another central defender with Bundesliga experience, the new coach Horst Steffen is offensive. The Werderans now not only lack accuracy, but also creativity-this illustrates a look at the assist statistics of the pre-season. Ducksch, Weiser (both 8) and Stage (5) gave most of the templates, behind it only Romano Schmid (4) comes to a value that is higher than two.
Together with striker Marco Grüll, Schmid is the only fit offensive player, who delivered stable last season. But Schmid could also leave Werder with a suitable offer, especially since he is one of the few players who could bring in a large transfer plus.
On the other hand, nothing indicates on the access page that could increase the offensive straight away. Werder flirts with a transfer by Samuel Mbangula (Juventus Turin). But whether the 21-year-old is an immediate start for the start of the season can be doubted in 23 missions and three goals in Serie A.
As if the personnel worries are not already strong enough, the start of the season for the Bremeners also gives little good guessing – because the first weeks of the season are really tough. After the cup round game at last year’s cup finalist Arminia Bielefeld (A), the Bundesliga season starts at Eintracht Frankfurt (A). We continue against runner -up Bayer Leverkusen (h) before the duels at Borussia Mönchengladbach (A), against SC Freiburg (h) and FC Bayern Munich (A). This means that the Hanseatic League plays on three Champions League participants in the first five Bundesliga games.
This will also be a big challenge for Werder’s new trainer Horst Steffen. With SV Elversberg, Steffen was very successful in the second Bundesliga, achieved an outstanding third place in the table and only had to give up in the relegation against 1. FC Heidenheim.