Hoeness: "We want to unsettle Bayer 04"

Sebastian Hoeness on…

…the personnel situation: "Ermin Bičakčić is still not available for us. Dennis Geiger is already making progress but the game in Leverkusen comes too soon for him. We're hopeful he'll be able to play in the match against Gladbach, however. Marco John has come down with a cold, as have I incidentally. Jacob Bruun Larsen is still unavailable. Georginio Rutter sustained heavy bruising in a collision with Nico Schlotterbeck; we still have to wait and see whether he is alright for tomorrow. Angelo Stiller took a knock to his foot, there's a question mark over his involvement as well."

…Bayer 04 Leverkusen: "I'm sure that their tails will really be up after that defeat against Eintracht Frankfurt. They will definitely want to show a reaction. A defeat like that certainly always has an impact; that's why we need to ensure that thoughts of their last game remain in the back of their minds. But before that, they were very good on the road and showed their class. That's why I won't overestimate the game in Frankfurt. We'll have a go at them and try to unsettle them with our way of playing football."

…the last visit to the BayArena: "Despite the 4-1 defeat, it was a very close game last year. Christoph Baumgartner had a big chance to make it 2-2 when he was clean through on goal. These are the major moments in matches that we're currently taking full advantage of. That will also be the case against Leverkusen. Bayer 04 have a team with incredible quality. Schick with 14 goals, Wirtz with eight assists and some extremely quick wide players to boot. They're very attack-minded and repeatedly try to bring their players into one-on-one situations."

…his team's recent success on the road: "In our recent away matches, we've managed to take advantage of the moments that we'd also previously had in Bochum, Stuttgart and Dortmund. There's often such a fine line between victory and defeat. In Freiburg, everyone saw that a draw would have also been okay. But now we're managing to turn these matches in our favour. We have a good spirit, we believe in our own strengths. Fitness is also a factor – we are repeatedly managing to score late goals. We are using that to turn our performances into good results."

…the many different goalscorers: "It's something special. We now have 15 goalscorers. From a purely tactical perspective, it's about getting players other than our strikers in dangerous situations. Then there's our set-piece strength too, that's how our central defenders are also scoring. It's very nice when a lot of players have the feeling they are participating in the goals. Hopefully it continues that way."

Head-to-head:

Historically, TSG have not fared all that well against Leverkusen. Hoffenheim have already lost 15 Bundesliga meetings with their rivals from Leverkusen. The Kraichgau club have only suffered more defeats to Bayern Munich in the German top flight. There have also been six TSG victories and five draws across the 26 meetings with Bayer 04.

The opposition's form:

Bayer 04 are currently in third place in the table, a point and a place ahead of TSG. On Sunday, coach Gerardo Seoane's charges lost 5-2 away to Eintracht Frankfurt – despite having been 2-0 ahead at one point.

Match facts and statistics »