Manuel Baum out to pick up three points at his former club

“Obviously I look back on lots of great moments there,” says the 41-year-old, explaining that it won’t be an ordinary game for him. “But those moments are in the past. Now, I’m going there as the head coach of Schalke and I want to be coming back with three points.”

Conceding too many after giving the ball away

For Baum, the three Bundesliga games before Christmas – the Royal Blues welcome Freiburg and Bielefeld to the VELTINS-Arena after playing Augsburg – are extremely important. “We need to do everything to get as many points as possible,” he says. The side aren’t lacking any incentives according to Baum. “We’ve made steps in the right direction; our running stats were outstanding last time out.”

At the same time, Baum says that there is room for improvement in other areas. “We’ve been having problems defending corners. We’re also conceding too many after giving the ball away easily. That shouldn’t be happening,” says the head coach of the Royal Blues. “We need to go into every duel with full concentration and commitment and remember that losing the ball could result in a goal. When you’re struggling, you often have to invest even more, and things don’t come quite as naturally. Above all, we need to be winning the 50-50 battles.”

Three out injured, five with question marks

There are still some question marks regarding team news ahead of the final training sessions before the game. Frederik Rönnow, Goncalo Paciencia and Ahmed Kutucu will all be missing through injury, but the latter recently returned to training doing some running drills. It’s uncertain whether Salif Sané, Ozan Kabak, Suat Serdar, Amine Harit and Ralf Fährmann will be able to play. Baum suggested that all five may travel to Augsburg.

Whether all five are in the starting eleven, we’ll have to wait and see. On the goalkeeping position, the coach says: “If Ralle says he fit, then he’ll play. That wasn’t the case against Leverkusen – he said that he wasn’t quite ready. But we saw that, with Michael Langer alongside Ralle and Frederik Rönnow, we have another goalkeeper of Bundesliga quality.”

Harit working hard in training

Amine Harit could also return to the side. The Moroccan had some time away from the team for reflection, but he returned to the squad on Wednesday (9/12). Baum reports that the midfielder, who has been training hard individually away from the squad, has shown great commitment in training since his return and has been accepted back into the squad by the team. “You’re allowed to make mistakes. Amine has tried really hard to get back into the team. Our conversations with him have been very good. I’m sure that he’s learnt a lot,” says the head coach, adding: “I’m certain that Amine will help us in the coming weeks and months.”