Augsburg vs Monchengladbach preview - Favre expecting tough contest

Posted Friday, December 19, 2014 by PA

Borussia Monchengladbach coach Lucien Favre is paying no attention to Augsburg's last two Bundesliga games as he prepares his side for a difficult end to the year on Saturday.

Augsburg were above the Foals in the standings a week ago, but defeats to Bayern Munich and Hannover have seen them drop behind.

Those results do not take anything away from a side Favre only has praise for, however, as the Swiss coach has called for one last push to pick up three more points this weekend.

"Augsburg have a very good team and excellent players," Favre said. "They put you under a lot of pressure and are very engaged and aggressive.

"We're going to have to fight, but that goes for every game we play, otherwise you don't get any points."

Augsburg are looking stronger this season than they were last year, when they finished in their highest ever league position and only just missed out on qualification for Europe.

That was unforeseeable, especially after Gladbach deprived them of one of their most talented players last season, Andre Hahn.

"Augsburg are playing a great season and I can only take my hat off to them," Hahn said on his new club's website.

"They are very solid as a team and are going to make things very hard for us. They are particularly strong at home.

"I played one and a half years there and of course I'm still in touch with them, but I'm now at Borussia Monchengladbach and we want to win every game we play.

"It would be amazing if we could do that there because that would take us to 30 points and you could almost say we've had a perfect first half of the season."

If Augsburg win, on the other hand, it will be they who will most definitely be speaking about a perfect first half of the season having never before accumulated as many points as they have since August, placing them just three adrift of their guests this weekend.