Borussia Dortmund vs Hannover 96 preview - Korkut takes aim at Dortmund

Posted Friday, October 24, 2014 by PA

Hannover coach Tayfun Korkut is hopeful his side will be the one to turn the corner in the battle of two sides struggling for form this Saturday.

He leads his side to Borussia Dortmund, who may just have won their third game out of three in the Champions League in midweek, but who have already lost five matches in the Bundesliga this season.

Hannover have lost their last three and Korkut hopes his team can follow the examples of Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg by winning at the Westfalenstadion.

"Our situation is not yet critical, but we've got to get back on track," said Korkut on Thursday.

"We still want to be ahead of Dortmund in the league table on Saturday."

Three points currently separate the two sides in the standings and Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp wants his side to close that gap, although he says patience will be the key.

"I can't promise that anybody who has not yet taken their seat at 15:31 will have missed two goals," Klopp said.

"We're going to have to be patient on Saturday and it's going to be really hard work, and my team is ready for it."

Klopp has called for patience because he cannot see Hannover attacking his side the way Galatasaray did on Wednesday evening.

Instead, Bundesliga sides know how to get at Dortmund - by sitting deep and soaking up the pressure.

"There is a different style of play in the league," Klopp said. "The problem is not having to create chances against defensive opponents, but ensuring you don't run into a counter-attack.

"We've got to prevent that. We did it well in Istanbul and we've got to do it again on Saturday.

"We could have prevented the goals we've been conceding of late. We've got to defend better, with more intelligence and more consequentially, and we know how to do it."

They are unlikely to be able to count on Sven Bender, who dislocated his elbow on Wednesday, but does not appear to have broken anything, while Erik Durm is not training yet after injury.