Baum: "Young players grow in the face of a challenge"

Following two days off from training to start the week, Manuel Baum and his team began preparations for Sunday’s clash with Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday morning. After the session the FCA boss spoke to us about...   ... Jeffrey Gouweleeuw’s injury: "Jeff is one of our leaders and has had a great season so far. He is estimated to be out of action for about eight weeks – the game against Leverkusen being a realistic return date. We have already seen with Martin Hinteregger this season, that these things can go a lot quicker than thought, but we have quite a conservative approach to these prognoses." ...potential replacement for the Dutchman: "Hinteregger’s case showed us that we have players in our reserve who can step in and perform very well. Young players grow in the face of a challenge, so I’m not worried. As things stand it will be Kevin Danso who steps in for Jeff." ..transfer rumours surrounding Daniel Opare: "I will speak to him about this and explain my position clearly. This will be done internally, though, I resolve these things with the player, not anyone else. I listen to what the player himself has to say before I begin wildly speculating." ...the two halves of the game in Köln: "In the first 20 minutes in Köln we were very stable at the back and had two or three good breaks forward. If you’re behind, you have to do a bit more in the second half, but we’ve had plenty games where we’ve done that for the 90 minutes." ...Eintracht Frankfurt: "They have a great attitude and have a lot of ability too. Niko Kovac and his backroom staff are doing a great job with their players. Kevin-Prince Boateng has clearly matured; he has a lot of experience to offer. With Sebastian Haller added to the equation, they’ve got some real quality."