Every point counts now
“There are six games in the group, and we lost the first one. Every point which gives us chance to qualify further counts now. We have two home games ahead of us with top German and French clubs, we must cast off the match against Beer Sheva and focus on points in the following two games,” Slavia manager says.
Tomáš Holeš and Peter Olayinka are back after Covid-19. “Tomáš and Peter are in full training with us from Monday. We will see on Thursday whether they will be able to start to the game. The pause because of the disease surely left some mark on them. Ondřej Karafiát will not be available for the game and there is a question mark above Petr Ševčík’s name, he got injured during the game in Israel,” Trpišovský continued.
Strong team lies ahead of Slavia, but the red-whites could benefit from the different typology of the game. “It will be a different match, for sure. On the other hand, we are going to play against a team which is very strong in the offensive. They scored six goals against Nice and could add five more. They have great forwards with good support from the midfield. We could benefit from their style of play with more open defence, on the other hand, our defence stands before a difficult task. We must cope with their offensive, fast players and one-on-one situations. That’s what Leverkusen are great in,” the Boss added.
Last week Slavia lost to Beer Sheva after several mistakes in defence. “We couple pay close attention to the defensive play because there are no league games now. We made several mistakes in Israel, that’s true, I haven’t seen so many mistakes in one game in years. Beer Sheva had five attacks, scored three goals, and had two more opportunities. The problems originated in the centre of the pitch, but we couldn’t solve them right in our own box. We have seen the video many times, together and individually. We need to learn from this, there stands a top-level team against us now and we cannot afford to make such mistakes again,” the manager concluded.