Borussia Dortmund manager Lucien Favre wants his side to win all of their eight remaining matches as his side prepare to host European hopefuls Wolfsburg on Saturday.
Despite being level on points, Bayern Munich occupy the Bundesliga top spot with a superior goal difference to their rivals Dortmund, with the two set to meet on April 4.
Favre’s side have won all their domestic games since their Champions League last-16 defeat at Tottenham, and scored three goals in both of their last two matches.
“Ideally, we want to win every match,” Favre told bvb.de.
Despite leading the Bundesliga by nine points ahead of the winter break, Dortmund have dropped points in recent weeks – including a 2-1 defeat at Augsburg at the start of the month – and the manager is wary of the challenge posed by Wolfsburg.
He continued: “They’re very athletic and often switch systems. Sometimes they play with a diamond, sometimes a 4-3-3 and sometimes a flat 4-4-2.”
Who else is ready to see this tandem back in action Saturday? ⛈️➕⚡️ pic.twitter.com/r573kbSiVv— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) March 28, 2019
Favre will be unable to call on recent Chelsea signing Christian Pulisic after the 20-year-old tore muscle fibres while on international duty with the United States.
Pulisic scored his 10th international goal, becoming the youngest ever United States player to do so in the 1-1 draw against Chile on Tuesday before his 36th minute injury.
The manager will hope he will be able to count on Paco Alcacer, Mario Gotze and Axel Witsel after the trio returned to training last Thursday. Lukasz Piszczek remains unavailable, although he has returned to training.
Look who returned to training today! 😍pic.twitter.com/KgViL8TPGI— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) March 28, 2019
Favre will be looking to extend Dortmund’s impressive recent record over Wolfsburg, his side have not lost in seven matches since a defeat in the DFB Cup final in 2015. They also have a strong record at Signal Iduna Park, having won seven of their last eight matches at home.
Bruno Labbadia insists his Wolfsburg side travel to Dortmund with a lot of self-belief, as they bid to move into the European places.
“We can look forward to the game as we’re up against a top opponent,” Labbadia told vfl-wolfsburg.de.
“It’s always a nice challenge to try and get a result in front of such a big crowd in such an impressive stadium.
“We want to show once more that we’re very strong away from home.”
