Gladbach have enjoyed their best first half of the season in more than 40 years, ranked second two points behind leaders RB Leipzig, and two ahead of third-ranked champions Bayern Munich.

“Hibernating in second place in an extremely balanced competition, and after integrating a lot of new things, is a very good achievement,” Eberl told the website of local paper Rheinische Post in an interview published on Tuesday.

“Now we want to achieve something great in the Bundesliga in order to maybe play in Europe again next season.”

Marco Rose replaced Dieter Hecking as coach in summer, and new players arrived, with Eberl again explaining the decision to change coach which at the time led to plenty of raised eyebrows because Hecking led them into the Europa League.

“I felt I had to do something different. That doesn’t mean we weren’t satisfied with Dieter and didn’t have enough success, it was rather a look ahead into the future,” Eberl said.

He added that Hecking had acheived the first step with the team and Rose was now undertaking the next one.

Eberl said that Rose was a perfect match for the club in all aspects even though they don’t always share the same views.