"Now it's about a reaction"

"The elimination hurts for a long time. The only thing that matters now is the reaction to it, because that is what we can influence now," emphasised coach Manfred Schmid.

LASK are in third place with 22 points from twelve games, and most recently the Linz side celebrated a 3:1 victory in Klagenfurt after five previous winless games. The first duel of the season at the Generali Arena ended in a 1-1 draw:

"Even though they had a negative phase in between, they are a very, very good team - you must not forget, it was not long ago that LASK almost beat Salzburg and deserved to do so," Schmid explained.

Austria's last away game against LASK in Pasching was just over a year ago, when the Veilchen celebrated their first Bundesliga win of the season in the seventh round. "We have good memories of the last away game at LASK - that's when our big upswing started, when we won there a year ago," said Manfred Schmid.

Staff news:

The personnel situation remains tense. Andreas Gruber had to be substituted against Sport-Club in the 29th minute due to injury (back of the thigh) and is also questionable for Sunday, as is captain & head of defence Lukas Mühl. Handl, El Sheiwi, Wustinger, Husković and Raguž are also still out.