Wolfsburg vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach preview: Die Wölfe look for new wind under Hasenhüttl
Wolfsburg look to climb up the table on Sunday evening to turn around a disappointing season with a win. Borussia Mönchengladbach will look to beat the team level with them on points away from home.
| Photo: VfL Wolfsburg/DFL |
Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg won 2:0 last weekend against Werder Bremen (who had ten men for the entire second half) and even managed to score their second whilst the game was ten versus ten men (due to Maxence Lacroix's red card).
This victory ended an eleven match winless run under previous coach Niko Kovač who had often ridden his luck throughout his stint as Wolfsburg coach.
Ralph Hasenhüttl suffered two nine-nil defeats as manager of Southampton against Manchester United and Leicester City. The record win in the Bundesliga is currently 12:0 (Borussia Monchengladbach versus Borussia Dortmund on the last matchday 1977/78).
Wolfsburg are one of only eight teams in the Bundesliga to change their manager this season, and are only the second team in 2024 to sack their manager.
Ahead of Sunday's game, Ralph Hasenhüttl said: "We have a debt to pay to the fans. We have to show them what we want to do."
Team news
Koen Casteels is out for Wolfsburg and so is Maxence Lacroix with a red card suspension. Lukas Nmecha is also unavailable due to muscular injury and so is Cédric Zesiger.
Borussia Monchengladbach
Borussia Mönchengladbach were beaten comfortably by a mid-table Freiburg side that are still hurting from their Europa League exit last weekend 3:0 as Ritsu Doan, Merlin Röhl and Gregoritsch all scored.
In spite of this, they are fortunate that they still have a lot of breathing room between themselves and the bottom three thanks to draws in the last month against Köln and Mainz.
In contrasting fashion, their defence has been very poor this season as they have shipped fifty-three goals (more than Köln, Mainz and Wolfsburg).
The departures of Jordan Beyer to Burnley and Ramy Bensebaini to Dortmund seemed to have put their backline into disarray this campaign in the Bundesliga.
Lastly, in line with this, Borussia Mönchengladbach Gerardo Seaone said: "In order to be successful again, we have to concede fewer goals, score more goals ourselves and, if we are in the lead, keep it going."
Team news
Manu Koné is out for the foals and both Nico Elvedi and Florian Neuhaus are doubts.