BVB have picked up 12 points from their first five games, and will look to gain three more on Saturday. Ahead of the match away to Borussia Mönchengladbach (18:30 CET), coach Marco Rose is unlikely to have too close an eye on the league table; instead he will want to highlight to his players how well his former team played against Bayern Munich on the opening night of the season, holding the reigning champions to a 1-1 draw in what was the only time Bayern have failed to win a game this season.

"I'm expecting a team that have real quality, that are capable of beating anyone in the Bundesliga on their day," Rose said of the upcoming opponents, adding: "They will do everything they can to win this big game at home against strong visitors from Dortmund."

A large number of questions at today's press conference revolved around Rose's return to Gladbach. He expects the atmosphere to be intense: "With this in mind, we have to be ready to take it all in and try to play our football out on the pitch."

With the exception of the 2-1 loss in Freiburg, this football has brought the desired results in all competitions so far. "Results are the most important thing in football in order to increase the players' confidence in what they're doing," said the 45-year-old, who has drawn some preliminary conclusions from the season so far: "A lot of things are already working quite well. But we have to work on seriously getting through a game over the full 90 minutes. In the Bundesliga, if you let up just a little bit, you can quickly find yourself in trouble.''

As far as personnel is concerned, barely any changes are expected to the starting XI. Thorgan Hazard is not yet a candidate to play for 90 minutes, the coach revealed: "Toto couldn't take part in training the day after the Union game because he had a little pain. Yesterday, however, he was fully involved." The same goes for Nico Schulz, who will return to the squad after the injury he suffered in the game in Freiburg, "if things go as well for him today and tomorrow as they did yesterday, when he took part in team training again for the first time." Rose sees "a few guys on the right track, but it will still take a few days." Namely Julian Brandt and Emre Can. What is more: "Daxo (Dan-Axel Zagadou, ed.) did a few drills with the team for the first time yesterday. However, we will still need to be patient with him." (br)