After the brutality of losing 5-1 to Bayern München, 96 continues on its deadly schedule only four points above Energie Cottbus in the final relegation spot. Looking down a gauntlet of BVB, 1899 Hoffenheim, Werder, Hertha BSC and HSV, Dieter Hecking has his work cut out for him and need to start squeezing out points against top of the table sides.As Dortmund comes to AWD-Arena they are still without a win since the start of the Rückrunde and know that three points is needed if they can rekindle their European hopes. After three consecutive draws, last week they broke their streak, albeit in the wrong direction with a 2-1 loss to Stuttgart. Last week their coach, Jürgen Klopp, went looking for goals using Nelson Valdez and Mohamed Zidan up-front and is likely to do the same with Tamás Hajnal a very dangerous creative influence. Dedê returned to his defending position but they are without Kevin-Prince Boateng for the next month. Possibly the biggest concern is the possibly return of Polish international Jakub Błaszczykowski and while few details are available, if he returns the Dortmund attack takes a great leap forward.
Set pieces which ripped apart 96 badly last week will again be the concern. Arnold Bruggink, Steven Cherundolo, Sérgio Pinto and Jan Schlaudraff all returned to training and are recovering nicely and likely to be available for the weekend although Mikael Forssell is less than "fifty-fifty."
When asked of the problems last week Michael Tarnat said to 96 TV:
"Faced with a result like that we're not exactly sitting around in the changing room laughing our heads off. It was a big disappointment. We had been up 1-0 and given away two easy goals from set-pieces. Then we put everything into getting back on level terms and went 3-1 down instead. At that point it was obvious that our chances of taking anything from the game were fairly minimal."
