Next up: Sunday's home game against STVV. Brian Riemer answered questions from the press on Friday afternoon.
Brian Riemer started his press conference with some good news. Apart from Marco Kana and Hannes Delcroix, pretty much everyone is available for selection.
“Marco & Hannes are already on the pitch, running, so hopefully we can get them back by late February. Adrien Trebel and Moussa N’Diaye are fit again. Islam has been through a lot of tests this week, and he is fit and ready to play. The question is what role he will play Sunday, because - luckily - we are in a position now that we have three strikers up for contention, with Mario Stroeykens and Benito Raman together with Islam Slimani. With Slimani, we have a different profile in the squad. He’s an animal in the box, he can use his body to hold the ball. It’s important for a coach to have different options for different moments in a game."
“That means I have some decisions to make, but I’m happy that all of them are fit and ready to go. I don’t expect that either one of them will play 90 minutes, so I will use my subs as well.”
Coach Riemer also talked about using the training sessions this week to keep improving in the final third. “It was nice to have an extra training day this week (with a game on Friday last week), because we also know that it will be different in the next two weeks with our European games. We had a good opportunity to work on our offensive plan, structures and agreements. I’ve said before that, first, we wanted to build a foundation and to make sure that everybody works hard for each other. I really think that the team has done well in that aspect in the past few games. I think it’s already been more than 300 minutes that we haven’t conceded a goal now. So there’s a good foundation in the team. I also see a far better atmosphere and a strong belief, more than I saw when I arrived there. For us now, it’s about creating a better flow in our style of play. The attacking part is definitely the part where we’ve focussed on this week. I’ve always said that I want to have an attractive and dominant style of play, and that’s what we are focusing on now.”
