Toppmöller hints at starts for Collins and Brown against Bochum

Eintracht Frankfurt head-coach Dino Toppmöller was forced to turn to two young talents in order to shore up personnel problems in his back-four on Wednesday evening. 

Twenty-one-year-old summer signing Nathaniel Brown ended up taking the squad place of injured right-back Rasmus Kristensen. Brown made his first start in SGE colors on his natural left-hand-side while Tuta took over Kristensen’s right fullback role.

Toppmöller found himself in need of another quick fix when central defender Arthur Theate was sent off on a straight red in the 15th minute. Twenty-year-old defender Nnamdi Collins entered on behalf of attacker Eric Junior Dina Ebimbe as part of a tactical re-format in the 25th. 

In his longest SGE deployment since an ill-fated start against Stuttgart last season, Collins received excellent reviews in the German press.

Speaking at a Friday press conference, Toppmöller made clear that Collins was definitely a candidate to replace Theate against Bochum this weekend. Frankfurt must do without the Belgian central defender as he serves a league suspension for a sending off last round. The SGE trainer also let it be known that this applied to Brown as well.

“Nnamdi is definitely a player who is a candidate for the starting XI,” Toppmöller said, “Nathaniel also played an excellent game. If one of the two doesn’t start, it won’t be for performance reasons.”