Ole Werner suffered his first defeat as Werder Head coach as SVW lost 2-1 to FC Heidenheim. “Overall, we didn’t play well today,” summarised Leonardo Bittencourt after the game. “We simply didn’t take our chances today and conceded two poor goals,” added Niklas Schmidt. Werner was also frustrated that his side conceded “two relatively simple goals”.
WERDER.DE summarises the match reaction of head coach Ole Werner, Niclas Füllkrug, Leonardo Bittencourt, Niklas Schmidt and Anthony Jung.
Ole Werner: “Injuries meant that today we were a little more unsettled than we have been in recent weeks, particularly on the ball. Despite everything which went on in the game, I honestly thought we had three very good chances in the first half and we could have put ourselves on the front foot had we taken them. We conceded two relatively simple goals, one because of some poor positioning and another due to a mistake whilst we played out from the back, so we played into Heidenheim’s hands a little bit there.
Leonardo Bittencourt: “We started well and had several chances ourselves in the first half, but unfortunately, the ball bounced on the wrong side of the post whereas it went to the right side for us in the last few weeks. We were doing well before we went 1-0 down out of nowhere, and then after making a decent start to the second half, we committed an individual error and they made it 2-0, and that happens. We left it a bit late to get one back, only scoring in the 89th minute, and overall we didn’t play well today.”
Anthony Jung: “It was a tough game, we knew it would be tough to come here, they’re a good side at home. Obviously we wanted more from the game and we wanted to take something with us. When things don’t work out the way you want them to, then you have to keep working to get back into the game. It can be simple things like tackling or playing with the right amount of aggression in possession. We weren’t good at these things today, which meant we weren’t able to decide the game for ourselves.”
Niclas Füllkrug: “Heidenheim took a different approach to our previous opponents. As good as the first goal was, we could have prevented it in the first place. We got out to the shot reasonably well but then didn’t do anything else. I think the longer it stays 1-0, the greater the chance that we leave ourselves open at the back, just like Duckschi has done to our opponents this season. To lose 2-1 is tough to take, but we cannot have any complaints. We’ve done really well in the ten games before today, and days like these sometimes just happen.”
Niklas Schmidt: “I don’t agree that this defeat had been looming. Every match is different, every opponent is different, every opponent sets themselves up against us differently and has their own system. We simply didn’t take our chances today and conceded two poor goals.”
Ole Werner: “I think it’s good for us to have a mixture of shorter passes to draw our opponent out as well as longer passes. We played it long mostly today, because we viewed that as a better option. Tony Jung is also not used to playing left-centre-back, having trained all week at left-wing-back. The two roles are very different when it comes to build-up play. Of course the safer option would have been to pass to Felix Agu, but maybe it would’ve been easier for Pavlas to knock it long. But these are things that can happen when not everyone is clear on what to do at that was unfortunately what happened to us today.”
Leonardo Bittencourt: “Things like their second goal can happen. It was a mistake from Tony and he more than knows that. We’re not going to shout his head off about it, because it can happen to anyone.”
Anthony Jung: “I made the wrong decision. I thought there was a bigger gap there than there was. Because of that, they were able to score. It was an individual error from me, no question about it. I made our task even more difficult by gifting them a second goal.
Niklas Schmidt: “We won’t need to build up Tony Jung again after his mistake, he’s an experienced player. He’s a super player and a great guy, so I’ve no doubt he’ll be able to put it behind him.”
Leonardo Bittencourt: “We didn’t do a lot of things right today, but it was a real blow that we were without Ömer and then Marco today. But that’s what can happen during a season. We were a bit sloppy at the back which caused us some problems, and we’ll need to work on that ahead of next week, when we’ll also see if anyone is able to come back into the side.”
Anthony Jung: “We needed to do more today, simply put. Not having Ömer on the pitch certainly made it a bit trickier, we had to try and make up for his absence as an entire squad, and unfortunately we didn’t do that today.”
Niclas Füllkrug: “We wanted to get a result despite not having Ömer with us. We are all aware of his quality, but I think that too many things happened today which were simply unplanned. Ömer had to leave training on Friday and that was a real loss. Then Marco went off injured and suddenly we had to play with a completely new back three. I know the lads are capable of doing that, but the original defence had been doing well before and were getting better with every game.”
Niklas Schmidt: “Ömer is a crucial player, that’s more than clear. But the three lads we had at the back also did well today. We conceded twice and weren’t threatening enough in attack, so we need to look ourselves in the mirror after today.”
Leonardo Bittencourt: “We need to brush off this game quickly. We can’t go through everything which went wrong in a huddle now and start arguing with each other, that won’t help us at all. We’ll work on our mistakes we made today. We’ve only lost one of the last 11 matches and we need to get back to winning ways next week, it’ll be a great game.”
Anthony Jung: “We’ll analyse the game and then try and do better next week. It’s not the end of the world. Yes, our streak is over, but we’ll start building a new one next week. We’ll analyse and look at what went wrong and then we’ve got a chance of making it better in front of a home crowd against Darmstadt next week.”
Niclas Füllkrug: “We’ll keep calm and relaxed. We have another really important game coming up next week and will need to prepare well for it. It’s only how the table looks on the final day which matter. We’re going to stay humble and continue to work hard.”
Niklas Schmidt: “We’ve only lost one game, we don’t need to be too down about it. We didn’t play well today but we weren’t awful. We need to keep a cool head, because we’ve got immense quality in our squad and a lot of experienced players. We need to concentrate on the next few weeks and do better than today. We’re all reaching after the same goal, we want to get promoted.”
