Next stop Bremen: in the next round of German top flight football BVB travel away to SV Werder Bremen on Saturday. "We know how tough it is to do well and get points in Bremen," said Thomas Tuchel. "We will need another top performance to take home all three points."

For the Borussia Dortmund boss, it is always "a special occasion to play in Bremen. It's always fair and there's always a fantastic atmosphere there," he said. Even though Viktor Skripnik's team have not made the Weser Stadium the strong home fortress it has traditionally been for Werder and Tuchel describes "the image that we have of Bremen" as being "quite unclear" ("Werder are difficult to predict"), the Green and Whites seem to be on the up and up. Tuchel labelled their successes in Mainz in the league and against Cologne in the cup as a "small turning point" and said in the run-up to the match: "We are facing a team that has new-found belief in the way it operates."

However, the Black and Yellows will also be brimming with confidence when they take the ICE train to the north coast early this evening. Twelve goals in two games and 61 in total is an excellent haul. "But you can't take it for granted that you're going to get results like 5-1 or 7-1," said the coach, before adding: "My players realise how much work they need to put in. We need to remain hungry."

"We will not rotate for the sake of it"

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Sokratis

With the exception of long-term injury absentees Erik Durm and Nuri Sahin, Tuchel has a full squad at his disposal for the trip to Bremen. But as he explained, "we will not rotate for the sake of it. We'll do it when we think it'll do us some good." After the last few weeks' performances, the coach is happy to now have a core squad of up to 15 players who are all in competitive mode" and then added: "I believe that we have reached a new stage in our development and that we now have more than ten outfield players who can win matches for us."

One of them is central defender Sokratis, who is returning to his old stomping ground. "I have wonderful memories of Werder Bremen, but I'm happy to have made the switch to a team as big as Borussia Dortmund," the Greece international, who recently extended his contract with the Black and Yellows until 2019, declared. "It played a decisive role for me that I feel like I'm an important component of the team and that we have such incredible fans at Signal Iduna Park."

But the next outing for Sokratis and Co. is an away trip. "It's going to be a tough match," he said. "Bremen are on the up and up. We know that if we play our game, we can hurt our opponents."

Boris Rupert