Polzin on the Hannover friendly, new signings and the squad

It’s been a short but eventful training week for HSV, ending with the friendly against Hannover 96. On Friday (5th September), the players will follow individual training plans. Earlier in the week, the Rothosen strengthened their squad with technically gifted midfielders Sambi Lokonga (25) and Fabio Vieira (25) on Deadline Day, having already brought in ball-playing centre-back Luka Vuskovic (18) a few days earlier. While the Croatian defender impressed in training before joining up with his national team – as did seven other HSV players – Lokonga and Vieira have since made their mark in training and featured in the final half hour of today’s game against the 2. Bundesliga leaders. After the match, head coach Merlin Polzin spoke to the media about the new signings, what he took from the friendly, and the situations concerning Jordan Torunarigha and Jean-Luc Dompé. The 34-year-old spoke in detail about…

…the friendly against Hannover: I wasn’t happy with the final score, of course, but there were positives to take from the game. Manu Pherai is back after a long injury lay-off, Yussuf Poulsen was able to get more minutes, and Fernando Dickes showed he can compete at this level over 90 minutes. The new lads also slotted in well for half an hour despite only having had a few training sessions. That’s something we can build on. At the same time, there are things we clearly need to improve, especially when it comes to our organisation against strong opposition. We addressed that at half time and it got better as the second half went on.

…new signings Lokonga und Vieira: They both had a pre-season but didn’t really play in many friendlies, so we don’t want to overload them straight away. The plan is to integrate them step by step so that we can get the best out of them. That’s why they only came off the bench today. You could see their quality in the final 30 minutes – their movement, their organisation, their play on the ball. They managed to create attacking moments time and again. They can lift the team to another level, which is why we signed them.

…new signing Luka Vuskovic: So far, we’ve only seen him in training last Saturday, where he looked sharp and fit in a six-a-side exercise. He was vocal, took responsibility and showed leadership. I’m very happy he’s here at last, even if it’s unfortunate that he’ll now be away with the national team for a while.

…the transfer window: We were clear from the start about the type of players and profiles we wanted for our football. In the end we added three more guys who have a lot of the attributes we wanted. I’m glad it came together as it did. Overall, I’m very happy with the squad we’ve put together, both in terms of the footballing quality and personalities. I’m really looking forward to working with them all now.

…the current squad situation: The plan is for Jordan Torunarigha to rejoin training on Monday. With Jean-Luc Dompé, the injury was still lingering and he wasn’t yet at 100 percent, so we’ve used the first week of the international break to build him up. He’ll gradually increase his workload. For him and his ability to take defenders on, it’s crucial that he’s fully fit. We all know that, so the goal is to get him to 100 percent and keep him there for the long term, not just in bursts.