Pre-Season Preview: Innsbruck Cup

Blog written by ad_wilkin
Published: 26th July 2023 20:09

On Friday, Town are back in Austria with a double header against Bundesliga sides RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen in the Innsbruck Cup. I’ll take a look at what Town can expect from those two opponents, run through their previous seasons, the managers and the squads.

Leipzig are the stronger of the two sides having played regular Champions League football (making the semi-final in 2020) and finished third in the Bundesliga last season.

Only formed in 2009, their following has grown due to that success and they averaged attendances of 45,559 last season.

They are currently in a training camp in Italy which will end with a friendly against Udinese. This will only be their second friendly of pre-season having already beaten FC Grimma 7-0 in their first.

During the time that RB Leipzig have risen, Werder Bremen have experienced a fall. A Champions League and UEFA Cup fixture in the 2000s, they have since seen a downturn in fortunes having sold the likes of Miroslav Klose, Mesut Ozil and Claudio Pizzaro.

They were relegated to the second tier in 2020/21 but bounced straight back with a second place finish a year later. Werder finished last season 13th, avoiding the relegation battle in their first season back in the top flight.

They are currently three friendlies into their pre-season preparations and unbeaten in games against Drochtersen, Oldenburg and Toulouse, scoring 10 goals across those games.

<h1>The Managers</h1>

Leipzig are managed by 46-year-old Marco Rose. The former Bundesliga defender, who played for Jurgen Klopp at Mainz, has been managing for 10 years with a career that started at local club Lokomotiv Leipzig.

He then worked his way through the ranks at Leipzig's sister team RB Salzburg, managing the under-16s and under-18s before two years with the first team. This was followed by two years at Borussia Monchengladbach before just a single season at Borussia Dortmund.

He took over at RB Leipzig in September 2022 and boasts an impressive win record of 68.29% in his first season at the club

Werder Bremen’s manager Ole Werner is a bit less well know. Much like Kieran McKenna, Werner's playing career was cut short with him only spending three seasons as a player at Holsten Kiel (currently in the 2.Bundesliga).

His association with the club didn’t stop there though and five years later he was managing Holsten Kiel II (Germany's equivalent of a reserve team). He became their first team manager in 2019 and took them to a third-place finish in the 2.Bundesliga in 2020/2021.

It is this success that led to Bremen poaching him from their rivals. The move paid off with them finishing second in the 2.Bundesliga and gaining automatic promotion which was followed up by a season of stability the season just gone.

<h1>Goalkeepers</h1>

With long-term first-choice goalkeeper Peter Gulasci rupturing his cruciate ligaments early in the 2022/23 season, it was new signing Janis Blaswich who played the majority of games for Leipzig last season.

Blaswich has largely a second-choice goalkeeper throughout his career. At the age of 32 he has only made 26 Bundesliga appearances, but he excelled in the role last year conceding only 29 goals. Gulasci could have a battle on his hands to get his place back.

Werder Bremen's first-choice keeper Yiri Pavlenka by contrast conceded over double the number of goals as Blaswich, which amounted to the third-highest in the Bundesliga. The 19-cap Czech international has been at Bremen since 2017 and has made 217 appearances for them in that time.

Pavlenka has been given more time off following his international exploits so it was understudy Michael Zetterer who started Bremen’s first two friendly games before Pavlenka returned for the game against Toulouse.

Zetterer is another definitive number two with only two Bundesliga appearances to his name despite having been with Die Werderaner since 2015.

<h1>Defence</h1>

The shining light in the Leipzig defence is 21-year-old highly-rated left-sided centre-half Josko Gvardiol. Whether he is still at the club by the time they play Town is another matter with Manchester City showing serious interest. Signed from Zagreb in July 2021, Gvardiol has become an integral part of the Leipzig team, starting 24 times last season.

Alongside him for most of last season was experienced captain, Hungarian Willi Orban. Orban is a goal threat from set pieces with four goals last season being added to his total of 21 across 184 Bundesliga appearances.

Orban and Gvardiol are key to RB Leipzig’s possession-based approach, with Orban playing more passes that any other defender in the Bundesliga last season (2,628). This stable central pairing at the back is there to support the flying full-backs.

At right back is Benjamin Henrichs. The 26-year-old signed from Monaco in 2021 following a successful loan spell. A German international with eight caps, the right-back gets up and down the wing and made 20 key passes last season. Where he is possibly lacking a little bit is in delivery of the final ball with only two assists to an xA (expected assists) score of 3.45.

The full-backs of Leipzig were an area where manager Marco Rose liked to rotate with all four, averaging around 60 minutes. Henrichs was the most used with his average up to 73 minutes per game. Rotating with him was 23-year-old Frenchman Mohamed Simakan.

Signed from Strasbourg in July 2021, last season was already Simakan's fourth in professional football. Like Henrichs he also underperformed his xA but along with Henrichs he is a strong tackler and wins a lot of duels which allows RB Leipzig to win the ball back high up the pitch, as was seen for the second goal in the DFB Pokal final with Henrichs intercepting the ball high on the right to start the attack that eventually saw Szoboszlai finish the move off.

Appearances down the left-hand side were split more evenly between David Raum (19 starts) and Marcel Halstenberg (17 starts). Raum was a £22 million signing from Hoffenheim and the beginning of the season and has 18 caps for Germany.

Raum brought a creative threat to the left hand side with 1.9 key passes per game on average, the fifth highest in the league.

Halstenberg by contrast was one of Leipzig’s longest serving players, having been at the club since 2015 when they were in the 2.Bundesliga. He missed a large part of the 21/22 season with injury and at 31 these are both reasons why he didn't start as much as he used to. He won’t be featuring against Town as he has recently completed a transfer to Hannover 96.

Bremen more often than not deployed a back three with wing-backs to allow two strikers up top. The three centre-halves of Milos Veljkovic, Nicklas Stark and Marco Friedl played a combined 6,941 minutes.

This solid base is what Bremen built off with those three focused on defending. The heatmaps show minimal touches over the halfway line letting the other players build the attacks.

Veljkovic might be a familiar name to some from a 2015 loan spell with Middlesbrough where he played 28 minutes in a 2-0 defeat to Mick McCarthy’s men (Daryl Murphy and Jay Tabb the goalscorers in that one). He signed for Bremen in February 2016 from Tottenham and has been there ever since.

Stark was picked up on a free transfer from Hertha Berlin at the beginning the 2021/22 season and has 227 Bundesliga appearances to his name and Friedl signed from Bayern Munich back in 2019 having only made two appearances for Die Roten.

By having that solid back three it gives the wing-backs more freedom to get up and down the pitch and impact the game. On the left this was the versatile Anthony Jung and the right-hand side minutes was split between Mitchell Weiser and Amos Pieper.

Weiser excelled in his position contributing two goals and nine assists from right wong-back. Those nine assists were the most for Bremen by a long way. The second highest was Ducksch. Jung also chipped in with two goals and five assists. Watching those two come up against two of Town’s top assisters Leif Davis and Wes Burns could be a very spicy battle.

Also in the squad with the potential to get a pre-season run out is Lee Buchanan. His first season at Bremen probably didn’t go as well as he’d have liked with only two starts following his move from Derby but the 22-year-old has 70 Championship appearances and will be looking to use these pre-season games as a chance to state his cause.

<h1>Midfield</h1>

Leipzig tend to favour a 4-2-2-2 box midfield but have the versatility to switch it to a 4-2-3-1 if needed. The two holding players is another area where Leipzig like to rotate with minutes and starts shared between Amadou Haidara, Xaver Schlager, Kevin Kampl and Konrad Laimer.

Haidara is a Malian international signed from sister team RB Salzburg in January 2019. He is statistically one of the weaker midfielders of the four with no real standout stats, just an all round solid player.

Playing alongside him towards the end of the season and in the DFB Pokal Cup final, which Leipzig won, was Konrad Laimer. Laimer, another Salzburg import, left at the end of the season and has joined Bayern Munich on a free transfer.

Fellow Austrian Xaver Schlager joined the club in July 2022 and brings a left-footed balance to the two holding midfielders when he plays. Much like Haidara, Schlager keeps it simple, breaks up play and moves the ball on to the more creative player.

The last player in there is 32-year-old Kevin Kampl. The Slovenian has now been at Leipzig for six years and the experienced campaigner was used more to see games out and provide stability and experience when Leipzig were in the lead.

As we look further forward into that midfield and up front this is where there has been more transfer activity. With Dominik Szoboszlai sold to Liverpool for €70 million, Leipzig will be looking to Liverpool loanee Fabio Carvahlo and summer signing from Hoffenheim, Christoph Baumgartner to replace those six goals and eight assists.

Carvahlo was used sparingly by Liverpool last season with mainly cup starts and appearances off the bench in the league. He struggled to have much influence in any of those games and will be looking to recapture his form from when he was at Fulham.

Whereas Carvalho is still a raw talent, Baumgartner is proven in the Bundesliga player averaging 6.75 goals a season across his four full seasons with Hoffenheim. Baumgartner is comfortable drifting into wide areas as well as more centrally and even deeper in the midfield to get on the ball as well as finding the right time to be in the box to score. All seven of his goals last season came from inside the box.

Also coming into the side is highly-rated Dutch youngster Xavi Simons. Simons has signed from PSG but spent all of last season on loan at PSV in the Eredivise scoring 19 goals and getting eight assists. He has already made appearances for the Dutch national team and looks to be a real talent.

In addition to those threats, Leipzig also have Dani Olmo and Emil Forsberg. Spaniard Olmo was a big player in their run to the Champions League semi-finals but hasn’t quite hit the same heights since. He only made 15 league starts, scoring two goals last season.

Forsberg is a player with vast experience. He has 20 goals in 81 appearances for Sweden and 67 in 303 for Leipzig. Another versatile player he’s most at home on the left side of that attacking two looking to cut inside on his right making him a player with a similar profile to Ipswich’s Nathan Broadhead.

The midfield make up for Bremen changed a lot throughout the season so I’m going to go through them by minutes. Jens Stage was the most common starter. The Dane, signed from Kobenhaven, played 1,856 minutes largely as a more defensive-minded midfielder in that midfield three.

The second-most featured midfielder was Leonardo Bittencourt, who had a bit of a roaming role, playing on the right-hand side of the three and drifting around. He finished the season with three goals and two assists to his name, including a goal against RB Leipzig.

Also filling that midfield were two players with very similar names, Romano Schmid and Nicklas Schmidt. The diminutive Schimd (5ft 5in tall) has been a Bremen player since 2019 and is one of Bremen’s creative threats. He only got three assists last season but played a high number of key passes for his side.

Schmidt is a Bremen youth product who has only made 52 appearances for them despite having been at the club since 2016. He scored an absolute thunderbolt with his weaker right foot against Bayern Munich so can be dangerous from range.

Also in the midfield ranks is Ilia Gruev, the 23-year-old Bulgarian international made 18 starts in a more defensive role last season. Like Schmidt, he is also a Bremen youth product and will be hoping to nail down the holding role in that midfield next season.

However, the squad doesn’t end there as Bremen have added another two bodies to that midfield this transfer window.

The first of these is Naby Keita who has joined from Liverpool on a free transfer. He is unlikely to start against Town however as he picked up a knock in Bremen's first pre-season friendly.

The other signing will be far less well known with Kein Sato joining from Meji University. There is not much data on the 22-year-old Japanese player so he’ll be an interesting one to watch if he features.

<h1>Forwards</h1>

The loss of Christopher Nkunku from Leipzig's frontline is arguably an even bigger one than the loss of Szoboszlai. Now at Chelsea, Nkunku’s 16 goals made him joint-top Bundesliga goalscorer alongside Town’s other opponents' Niclas Fulkrug. More on him in a bit.

Much like Szoboszlai, it’s been a case of one out, two in, with young talents Lois Openda and Bejamin Sesko coming in to fill that gap. Sesko will be well know for anyone who plays <i>Football Manager</i> and was one of the most signed players on this year's game.

The 20-year-old has pedigree netting 16 goals in 23 starts for RB Salzburg last season at a rate of a goal every 127 minutes. He also has six goals in 21 games for Slovenia and should be the latest player to make the move from RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig and be a success.

As if that isn’t enough goalscoring talent, Openda brings even more. Signed from Lens who finished a surprise second in Ligue 1 last season, only one point off the title, the Belgian netted 21 times in 29 starts including six headed goals, something that was a bit of an achilles' heel for Town last season. It will be interesting to see how Town cope defensively against this pair of wonderkids.

Further to the danger they present, Leipzig will also have former Chelsea striker Timo Werner and Portugal International Andre Silva to call upon who are also both top level Champions League quality strikers.

The top end of the pitch is where Werder Bremen really excelled last season with two experienced strikers who out-performed all expectations. Thirty year-old Fulkrug finished joint-top goalscorer alongside Nkunku with 16 goals, continuing his form from Bremen’s promotion season in which he netted 19.

Strike partner Marvin Duksch netted an impressive 21 that season but was only able to convert that to 12 goals this time round. Bremen's formation is really focused on getting those two into play and letting them get shots away with Duksch and Fulkrug being first and third respectively in terms of shots at goal with only Marcus Thuram separating them.

If that wasn’t enough firepower, Bremen have further added to that by signing Dawid Kownacki from Fortuna Dusseldorf. He scored 14 goals in 2.Bundesliga last season and has already netted four times in Bremens first three friendlies. This will be a real test for Town’s back four no matter who starts. Full Bundesliga striker stats can be seen in the graphic below with the Bremen strikers up in the top right hand corner.

Click to view full size.

Predicting line-ups for friendlies can be a dangerous game but I've gone for it anyway below. Hopefully the league game predictions will be a bit more reliable.

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