Walter: “Our anger and disappointment can motivate us"

Tim Walter had a smile on his face again as he sat down in front of journalists at Thursday’s press conference. Despite the late finish to the game, he’d had the time to process HSV’s dramatic loss against Hertha BSC that saw them knocked out of the DFB-Pokal. The Rothosen’s head coach was asked about his view of Wednesday’s game and its impact on the upcoming match against SC Paderborn. Tim Walter, who seemed cheerful and optimistic, spoke in detail about...

...the loss against Hertha BSC: The game showed us that we’ve got to stay on the ball as a team until the very end. We need to show the desire to defend right up until the final whistle in every match we play. We can’t expect things to just land in our lap and we all have to work hard. We do precisely that with the goals we score, but the goals we concede are all easily avoidable. You saw that in Berlin. It really hurt to lose like that and it’ll still be tough to take today. We really wanted to get to the next round, since the Pokal is such a fantastic competition. We want to take our anger and disappointment and use it as energy for Saturday’s game. Our anger and disappointment can motivate us.

“We want to win this game at all costs”

...the squad: Van der Brempt and Dompe didn’t play in the Pokal as we wanted to rest them. The same was true for Ambrosius, even though he travelled to Berlin. We’ve got to be careful with them because they’re coming back from long-term injuries. It’s best that they don’t play three times in a week. I was impressed by how Mikelbrencis and then Oliverira fared against Reese. I was very happy with them on the whole – it shows that we can rely on young talent.

...Jonas Meffert’s suspension:  He’s definitely going to miss the game against Paderborn. We have a few different ways of solving this issue. In Elijah Krahn, we have a very young player who can step into position. Moritz Heyer can also play as a six and so can Lukasz Poreba. We’ve still got to decide whether we want to play with a six or with a completely different set-up. We’ll wait and see until Saturday.

...SC Paderborn: Paderborn have flown under the radar this season. They’re much better than their position in the table suggests. They’ve got good players, made some good signings in summer and, just like us, like to have a lot of possession. It’ll be tough, but we want to win this game at all costs. We want to extend our winning streak at home to eight games for our fans, who have our backs through thick and thin. We’ve got two important games coming up against Paderborn and Nürnberg and we want to give it our all in both matches.