“We were unable to score”

After the home defeat to Leipzig, Niklas Stark, Maximilian Mittelstädt, Karim Rekik and Valentino Lazaro all faced the media.

It was not the best 90 minutes at the Olympiastadion for the Berliners. On Saturday evening (03/11/18) RB Leipzig beat the capital club 3-0 and after the game, the players gave an honest analysis of their game.

Niklas Stark: We didn’t start well today. We changed from five at the back to four at the back and improved after that. We had good chances but were unable to put them away. If we had scored one of the chances, it would have been a completely different game. We didn’t win the second ball enough and Leipzig did. When we are on the pitch, we need the fan’s support. It is a pity that this was not the case today. However, we can’t make excuses for the loss today. I hope the fans are in full voice for the next game.

Maximilian Mittelstädt: Unfortunately, we were unable to score today, even though we had a lot of good chances early on. In defence, we were not great either and that is frustrating. However, it shows that Leipzig have quality in attack. Things like this happen and so we have to move on and focus on the next game. We can’t let our heads drop. I do not want to blame the defeat on the poor atmosphere today. We simply were not good enough in front of goal.

Karim Rekik: In the first half, we had a lot of chances to make it 1-1 but we were unable to take them. We played against a very good opponent, who countered very well. The atmosphere was a bit different to usual today, but I thought it was great that the fans cheered us after the final whistle.

Valentino Lazaro: We clearly struggled to get into the game. We initially played five at the back, but quickly noticed that we had no outlets on the wings, so we switched back to a back four and were able to get forward more. With the changes we had, we could easily have scored two or three goals. Going 2-0 down was really deflating for us, as we had tried everything. I had the feeling that we were very brave in midfield. Hopefully we will learn from this. We will give 100% again in the next game.

Davie Selke: We let them play their game too much at the start. We should have put them under pressure and got into them earlier. We should have scored at least one goal in the first half. We tried a lot and were highly motivated, but it just wasn't our day. The game didn't go as we'd hoped. I'd like to pay a massive compliment to Rune Jarstein, who kept us in the game for a long time, although even he was powerless at times.