How will you approach the final home game of the season against Hannover 96?
Eddy Sözer: "As always, during the week we will be working in very concentrated fashion. We can’t afford to be at all negligent – we must take this game extremely seriously. We want our final home game to be a positive one. I have a great deal of respect for the performances of Hannover 96. They are very committed and play as a unit. They’ve had a consistently good season and make good use of their strengths. We have our strengths too though and we intend to make use of them on Saturday."

In the past nine games, VfB have won six, drawn two and lost just once. The team would appear to have found its footing, would you agree?
Eddy Sözer: "That’s true. We have developed good team work between the players and the coaching staff. Even after set-backs, we recovered well and have managed to put a good run together. There were some negative experiences, which really worked as an igniting spark for us – such as the home defeat to Nürnberg but also coming back to win having been 0-2 down in Mönchengladbach. The win in Frankfurt was particularly good for the team. There the lads really battled against defeat and earned themselves some fortune."

When Bruno Labbadia and yourself first took over, things were looking very bleak for VfB – who then had just twelve points and were second from bottom of the table. What has happened since then?
Eddy Sözer: "We said right from the beginning that we had a plan and that we wanted to take a particular road – the team went along that journey with us. You can feel it in every training session that the players are following our plan. At the beginning, confidence was low, but now the team are showing something very different and they believe in themselves. We have also made up a lot of lost ground physically – which is very important for our game."