Tuchel wary of Frankfurt manager’s inside knowledge of Bayern
Thomas Tuchel expects Eintracht Frankfurt manager Dino Toppmoller to exploit his inside knowledge of the Bayern Munich players this weekend.
German champion Bayern returns to action after the postponement of last weekend’s clash with Union Berlin and travels to Frankfurt in the Bundesliga.
Toppmoller was a member of the Bayern backroom staff under current boss Tuchel’s predecessor Julian Nagelsmann before he was sacked in March.
“We haven’t made too many changes since and so he’s going to look back on our recent games and analyse them,” Tuchel said at his pre-match press conference.
“But that is nothing unusual. We cannot leave out every player that worked with him because we wouldn’t have a team then! It’s part of the business.”
Frankfurt appointed 43-year-old Toppmoller in the summer and Tuchel has been impressed with his start in the job.
Frankfurt heads into the weekend’s fixtures seventh on the table, 14 points behind second-placed Bayern, which has also played one game fewer.
“I think you can tell his style of playing,” former Chelsea manager Tuchel said.
“They’re just missing the results but, when we were analysing the games, we couldn’t really see the defeats and that is definitely credit to him.
“I’ve only heard good feedback about him here from the staff, from the players and it’s good that he’s going about his business. He’s going to make life difficult for us.”
Tuchel feels his players are raring to go after the frustration of last week’s cancellation owing to heavy snow in Munich.
He said: “We wanted to up the ante against Union Berlin with more aggression and investing more. We were ready until everything was called off.
“Now it is our job to really keep the level up. It was unusual but these are things you cannot change. We’ve trained intensively and aggressively. Now we want to take the next step and win.”
Forward Jamal Musiala is back in contention for Bayern after a month on the sidelines but is not ready to play a full 90 minutes. Matthijs De Ligt and Bouna Sarr remain unavailable but Tuchel otherwise has a fully-fit squad to choose from.
Bayern this week announced a deal to sign 22-year-old Spanish winger Bryan Zaragoza from Granada next summer.
Tuchel said: “We’ve signed up a very young and hungry player. He’s a good dribbler, strong in one-on-ones. He has a lot of confidence and hunger. We’re glad he’s coming to us.”
