“We need to be smarter” | OneFootball

Board member for sport Markus Krösche, head coach Albert Riera and captain Robin Koch give their reaction to the draw against Köln.

Board member for sport Markus Krösche: “We had to find solutions against a deep-lying opponent. We did that better in the second half and scored twice, but you have to say that if you go 2-0 up at home to Köln, then today’s result isn’t good enough for us. We can still improve our play. We still struggle when we have the ball against teams that sit back against us. Sometimes our play is too imprecise and not incisive enough. We need to be smarter and cut out the mistakes we’re making. As a team we shouldn’t be conceding those two goals today. We made one mistake too many today, and that led to them equalising at 2-2. It’s been a pattern all season. We have to do better.” 

Head coach Albert Riera: “Of course we’re disappointed that we didn’t win. We took more risks in the second half, but we didn’t win enough challenges. If you don’t win any duels, you can’t win the game. That was decisive today. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what we can improve for the next game. We need to understand when to increase the tempo and when not to. I’ll prepare the team again so that we can get all three points. We need to stay positive, keep our heads up, find solutions and keep going.”

Robin Koch: “We wanted to take more from the game. Obviously with a 2-0 lead we should have won. Right now, so soon after the final whistle, we’re really disappointed. We knew it wouldn’t be an easy game and that Köln would throw everything at us given the position they’re in. We should have kept our composure at 2-0 up, maintained control and seen the game out. We just needed to stay solid and not try to do anything special.”