For weeks, Eric Smith was St. Pauli’s only available six because colleague and competitor Afeez Aremu had been injured for a long time. Now Aremu is back – and Smith is new to the infirmary.
“He has knee problems,” said coach Timo Schultz. The Swede got off well from the Regensburg game, but since Hanover “team training is out of the question”. The condition is getting better every day, but to a manageable extent, so that the KSC game on Saturday will also come too early for Smith.
Three games in eight days should be too much for St. Pauli’s Afeez Aremu after an injury break
So everything depends on Aremu. “Afeez put up with Ingolstadt amazingly well, but he’s one of the guys who’s been out for months and had to get a performance out of cold pants,” Schultz knew. You have to see if you can trust the Nigerian to go the full distance three times in a week. And if you come to the conclusion that that would be too much, you have to look: Do you need Aremu more urgently in Berlin or against KSC? And who even comes into question as a representative?
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On Saturday, theoretically, Rico Benatelli, who had been absent recently and still has a training deficit. But there is still one who Schultz trusts to play the central defensive role: Jackson Irvine. The Australian can occupy all positions in the diamond and has already gained sufficient experience on the six.
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