SV Werder Bremen suffered their first defeat of the season, losing 4-3 to Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday evening. Speaking after the match, head coach Ole Werner and his team were not satisfied with their own performance, but will seek to draw lessons from the defeat. “On the path we’re on, it’s normal to have to suffer a defeat every now and then. Now, we need to improve on those things that caused us to lose tonight,” said Werner.
WERDER.DE have summed up all the post-match reaction from Ole Werner, Niclas Füllkrug and Marco Friedl.
Ole Werner: "Today wasn’t our best performance, we saw that right from the start. Although we were 2-1 up at one point, we can’t be happy with how we played, even in the first half. We didn’t manage to push ourselves to the limit and made a lot of mistakes. We didn’t manage to remain compact, and as a result, Frankfurt showed us with their pace and quality how quickly those gaps can be exploited in the first division. It was too easy at times. Our opponents also took advantage of our poor play when switching over and caused us to lose possessions in moments where they were easily able to overload us. It’s a deserved defeat in the end. On the path we’re on, it’s normal to have to suffer a defeat every now and then. Now, we need to improve on those things that caused us to lose tonight. That includes having more control over the game when we’re in possession, unlike how it was for long periods tonight. We failed to do what we had set out to do, and didn’t manage to play the way we know we can. Those are the kinds of things that can lead to a back-and-forth game like we just saw.”
Niclas Füllkrug: "I think it’s always nice to have games that are so action-packed. However, we made it far too easy tonight. We had to fight hard to score, and then conceded far too easily on three of their four goals. We weren’t bad in attack during the first half, and we tend to always be strong in attack. You can always count on us to score, with various players posing a threat. Our goal record is quite strong for a promoted side. We scored three times at home tonight – normally, that should be enough to win at home. It’s not enough, however, when you concede four. We need to see a clear improvement in defence.”
Marco Friedl: "We didn’t have a foothold in the game and started poorly as well. Even when we had the lead, they were pressuring us and giving us little room. When that happens, the centre-backs need to recognise where the gaps are and how we can manage to assert ourselves. We conceded too many goals and made too many mistakes, which is why we can see this as a deserved defeat. We gave away the game in the first half. We made too many individual errors, which will immediately be punished in this league. We didn’t allow many chances across the first three games, but every chance somehow led to a goal. It’s tough to take and far too many, when you look at the game as a whole. We can’t score three goals every week, even if we always manage to create chances of our own. Today was a prime example of that. There was a short span of time where we could have turned the game around. We can draw courage from that for the coming weeks. We didn’t manage to do that tonight, and didn’t stick to what we set out to do. Our next two games are very important, and we need to be more resistant.”
Ole Werner: "The opponent also always plays a role. These are the opponents we have, and we want to be as successful as possible against them and have already proven this season that we’re capable of picking up points against them. In order to do so, however, we have to play to the limit of what we’re capable of – this wasn’t the case tonight. Playing well for 30 or 35 minutes just isn’t enough. You have to maintain it over the full 90 minutes, which we didn’t tonight. Based on the quality of our opponents and how they played tonight, we have to pick ourselves up and do better. That’s the challenge we have. We can’t change anything about the quality of our opponents, we can only seek to level the playing field through our own performance, which we weren’t able to tonight.”
Niclas Füllkrug: "There’s a lot of quality in the Bundesliga. We played against Champions League side tonight, one with a strong squad. We shouldn’t have allowed them to get into situations where they could use their pace and dribble towards us. They are strong when they can do that, especially with players that excel at using their speed. I felt like we lost the ball too easily and that we allowed our opponents to gain momentum.”
Ole Werner: "I can’t say exactly what’s wrong. He was feeling pain in his rib area. We will see this week what’s going on. It’s never good when you have to make an early change, because it leaves us with one less sub in the latter stages. It was frustrating and didn’t help us. But, these things happen and we need to react better when they do come up.”
Niclas Füllkrug: "Leo has had a great season so far, and he really fits in at this level. We are able to draw a lot of stability from him in midfield, while he also pushes forward and is always an option. Of course we were missing that tonight. But, we have strong players on the bench who came in and did a solid job.”
