Schmidt: “We lacked offence"
First Team
23.02.2020, 16:37
FC Augsburg will return home empty-handed after a 2-0 defeat in Leverkusen. “We wanted to put pressure on them, but weren’t able to take advantage of our chances the way we wanted to,” said head coach Martin Schmidt. We’ve gathered all the post-match reaction from the players and head coaches.
Daniel Baier: “I think that we started strong, but you saw just how good Leverkusen are today. All it took was one sloppy pass from us for them to take advantage of. That was the difference today. We were able to create chances up front but were lacking that final pass or the finishing touch. We have to accept responsibility for that tonight.”
Florian Niederlechner: “We had several chances but weren’t able to capitalise on them. I had a chance to give us the lead from a header, and I would have been clearly through on goal if my opponent hadn’t handballed it. He denied a clear goalscoring opportunity in my opinion, and it should have been a red card. We then fell behind with Leverkusen’s first shot of the game. From that point on, it things were difficult for us.”
Tin Jedvaj: “It was an unusual feeling to play against Leverkusen at the BayArena, but that’s football. Now, I’m giving my all for Augsburg. The way the game ended is tough to swallow as we have chances throughout that we failed to take advantage of. Leverkusen used their chances well.”
Jeffery Gouweleeuw: “We lacked composure on the ball, and could have played out our chances better. Leverkusen were very clinical today. But, we are still in a good spot in the table and have believe that we’ll be able to pick up the necessary points.”
Martin Schmidt: “We expected that Leverkusen would have the majority of possession, and prepared ourselves for that. We wanted to put pressure on them when we didn’t have possession, but weren’t able to use our chances the way we would have liked to. We were able to keep Leverkusen at bay, but then they had a shot that went in. We wanted to do more on offense after the break, but Leverkusen making it 2-0 hurt us. In the end, we lacked offence and have a lot of work to do.”
Peter Bosz: “Augsburg put us under pressure from the start, meaning that we had to react quickly. You were then able to see the quality that we have. I’m not entirely pleased, however, with our performance after we made it 2-0. Things could have gotten dicey for us if we had conceded a goal then. Luckily, that didn’t happen.”
