In round 4 of the ADMIRAL Bundesliga, the Violets will host TSV Hartberg at the Generali-Arena on Sunday afternoon (5:00 p.m.). After a turbulent few weeks, Helm's team is looking to secure its first win in front of its home crowd. By Friday morning, 11,000 tickets had been sold. “We have high expectations of ourselves and want to win this game,” said the coach at today's press conference.

Coach Stephan Helm on ...

... the next opponent:
“Hartberg put up a fight against Salzburg last week. We've had plenty of time to prepare for our opponents this week, so we've set ourselves high standards.”

... recent performances:
"It would be wrong to sugarcoat these games. I don't like to dwell on statistics, but they prove that the games are very close. We had many controversial situations that did not go our way. However, we must continue to believe in ourselves and want to turn these games in our favor more quickly in the future. Ultimately, we must continue to be critical of ourselves and work on ourselves with the utmost determination in order to score points as quickly as possible."

... everyday life without Dominik Fitz:
"The club management anticipated very well that Fitz might leave. If we had qualified internationally, we would have been in a good position. Although we did everything we could, that didn't happen. However, with Jojo Eggestein and Mani Sarkaria, we have added a lot of quality to the squad, so we weren't unprepared. Sanel Šaljić has also done well recently. Fitzi was a very special type of player. Something will definitely change without him. I'm excited – in a positive way – to see how we will compensate for his departure."...

... the importance of young players:
"Sanel Šaljić was on the pitch against LASK alongside Luca Pazourek and Dejan Radonjić. They did very well and have developed superbly over the past year. All players have to earn their minutes. They have done that. You can see that they have taken another step forward. Our squad is very competitive. There are enough players in the second row who may not be in the spotlight yet. But when they get their minutes, they can immediately bring constructiveness to the game."
 

Captain Manfred Fischer on ...

... the training week and the upcoming opponent:
"We are sticking together more than ever. We are in a phase that we want to get out of sooner or later. We don't want to be deterred, we want to stay true to our path. The training week was great. The dynamic against Hartberg will be completely different to that against LASK. They will probably sit deep, and we will play to that." ...

... the departure of Dominik Fitz:
"We will face this challenge too. The dynamic will change because our game was heavily built around Fitzi. But his departure also creates new opportunities; new players can prove themselves. We'll see how we do without him."  ...

... the mistakes made in recent weeks:
“The situation is delicate. We're making simple mistakes and thinking, ‘That can't be, where did that come from?’ The answer lies on the pitch. It's about eliminating the mistakes in the upcoming game and regaining the defensive stability we had last year.”

Squad news

Kang Hee Lee will be out for several weeks with a partial tear in the medial ligament of his left knee. Flo Wustinger and Romeo Vučić are in rehabilitation training, as is Abdoulaye Kanté. Aleksandar Dragović's recovery process is going “very positively” and he has already participated in parts of training. A decision on his availability will be made on Sunday.