“Today was difficult”

Davie Selke: We deserved to lose. Our pressing wasn’t as intense as it has been so far this season. It’s one of our biggest strengths, but we just didn’t show that as a team today. When we lost possession, we were punished. We spoke through things clearly at half-time and were very honest with one another at the same time. We wanted to turn the game around and reduce the deficit, and everything went to plan. Then, we put all of our eggs in one basket and deservedly lost. It’s especially painful because we’re at home, but we’ll put this defeat behind us and review things tomorrow. I’m not worried at all about whether we’ll be able to stay on track.

Daniel Elfadli: We got beaten pretty badly today. We weren’t brave enough on or off the ball and didn’t stick to the principles that normally dictate our play. That’s why we deserved to lose. The general situation is still positive. We should be disappointed which is also important. Losing games is part of football. Now, it’s important that we stick together. 

Ransford Königsdörffer: We’re disappointed with how the game went today. We didn’t perform the way we normally can. Braunschweig were clearly better than us on the day. They played with real grit. All too often, we didn’t win the second balls and were sometimes off the pace. We’ve got to learn from this match and give it our all again against Schalke next week. It should be a wake-up call for us.

Merlin Polzin: What really annoys me about the performance today is that we didn’t manage to play our way. In the first half in particular, we continually looked for lots of solutions at the back, were extremely detached and couldn’t build connections with one another. We didn't play the free-flowing attacking football which ought to define, and which has defined our style of play over the past few months. Obviously, it’s extremely disappointing that we’re at home. Of course, in the second half, and even after the second goal we conceded which was extremely unlucky, we tried to turn things to our favour and scored the goal to make it 2-1. Then, we missed the chance to further improve the situation. We conceded two unnecessary goals. Today was difficult and it hurts. But I’ve already said to the team that we’ll work again tomorrow. We’ll work through it. We’ll stick together – that’s what sets us apart from the rest.

Daniel Scherning: We fully deserved to win this game. We started well and had a very, very good structure in the first half. We put in a lot of work over the course of the match and also found space quickly after winning the ball back, which allowed us to threaten the scoreline. We scored two goals in quick succession just before half-time. It was a great moment for us, of course. After the break, we could’ve even had a third goal. Then, we had a tough period where we also conceded. What really impressed me was the reaction to the goal. We didn’t panic. After that, we scored a third and a fourth and, as I said, won thanks to a top performance.