Viktor Skripnik is appointed as head coach of Werder Bremen.

Viktor Skripnik  is appointed as head coach of Werder Bremen.
The new coach will be the previous U23 coach Viktor Skripnik, who will take over the control of the Bundesliga team with his coaching staff of Florian Kohfeldt, Torsten Frings and Christian Vander.

"We would like to thank Robin Dutt and his team for their work. He led SV Werder through a difficult stage in the past couple of months with a lot of passion. But after the recent results, we are convinced that the team needs a new impulse to get them out of the current situation," said manager Thomas Eichin.

Eichin thought it was the logical step in favour of the former Werder player Skripnik, who successfully coached Werder's U17s and U23s in recent years. "We forced our talent development with him over the past few years. He was an important part of the connection between the academy centre and the professional team. Now he has the chance to continue this path in the Bundesliga. We are convinced that he has everything needed to give the team confidence and the means to win games and continue to develop," said Eichin.

 The U23 coach Viktor Skripnik takes over the post of SV Werder head coach with immediate effect.

Skripnik, who learned of his new role on Saturday and will be officially introduced on Sunday, is looking forward to the challenge. "We have been close in the past months and know every individual player. I am certain that we will master this task. We have taken a Werder way which we have implemented with plenty of passion," said Skripnik.

The 44-year-old Skripnik, who played 138 Bundesliga matches for Werder Bremen, moved into the Werder academy centre as coach after winning the double in 2004. After serving as assistant coach for the U15, U21, U16 and U18 teams, the 24-time Ukrainian international took over the Werder U17 talents in 2008 and led Green-Whites to the runners-up in 2011. He has served as the U23 head coach since 2013 and finished runners-up last summer in the Regionalliga Nord. Werder's U23 currently are second in the league.

Skripnik's assistant coaches will be Florian Kohfeldt and Torsten Frings. Skripnik played with Frings, who has been going through the coaching training program since 2013 with the U23s, from 1997 to 2002 and won the German Cup in 1999. Also moving up from the U23 team to the Bundesliga team is Christian Vander as goalkeeper coach. The coaching staff is rounded out by athletics trainer Reinhard Schnittker. The previous assistant for video analysis Peer Jaekel will take over a different position. Alexander Nouri will take over the post as U23 head coach after previously serving as assistant coach of the Regionalliga team.