“Huge compliments to the team”

It can all happen so quickly in football. Just a week ago we were without a win in seven games, now we have two wins in a row. “It was an incredibly important win,” said Per Skjelbred after the 1-0 triumph on matchday 16. Dedryck Boyata had a brilliant 90 minutes in Leverkusen, which of course made him very happy. “We earned the victory together as a team. Perhaps we’re not playing the most attractive football in the world, but it gets results,” said the centre back.

Karim Rekik: The game plan was great. We were solid defensively and were quick to counter. We played so well, didn’t concede and grabbed a goal for ourselves. It was the same against Freiburg – we have to keep playing like that. We could play more attractive football any time we wanted but results are more important at the minute. We have so much quality in our ranks: we will always create plenty of opportunities for ourselves, we just have to take them. Javairo played a great ball in to me, I was in a good position and so I shot. First I went with the left, then the right, turns out the right one works too.

Dedryck Boyata: The win was very important to us and it was an important step for us to take. We wanted to put all those unsuccessful weeks behind us. The first step was the draw in Frankfurt, then the Freiburg win and now this. Everyone is working really hard so we can get out of this relegation scrap. In our position it doesn’t matter what body part you score with, head or foot – the most important thing is to score and Karim did. We earned the victory together as a team. Perhaps we’re not playing the most attractive football in the world, but it gets results.

Marvin Plattenhardt: We’re so happy with the three points. We didn’t have too many chances and played on the counter a lot. In the end we created a chances and got the goal so huge compliments to the team. In recent weeks and months we’ve conceded so many goals but now we’ve broken the duck. We know that things can change so quickly in football though. Going forward we obviously have so much quality and potential to score goals. Now we want to go in to that last game against Gladbach and get the three points again. Then it really would be a very merry Christmas.

Per Skjelbred: It was such an important win! Our morale was high going in to this game and we knew we would have to do a lot of defending. We won a lot of balls in the midfield and got out on the counter really well in the first half. We knew that Leverkusen would go more attacking when we got the goal but in the end we held our ground and got the three points. If you want to win games you have to do a good job defensively, especially against teams like Leverkusen. I know what it’s like to be in situations like we’re in – every point you don’t get in the Hinrunde, you have to make up after the winter break. That’s why this win is so important.

Lukas Klünter: I watched the derby of course because Cologne are my old team and I was so happy for them. Now we’ve got the win against them too which is great for our team and our fans, especially in our situation. Of course it was more about defending today, you saw that in how much possession we had. We did exactly what the coach told us to do – we played our game and got the win. Every time we win a tackle it gives us confidence. It’s so nice to be able to put this win under the Christmas tree. We’re not totally out of this situation, but we’ve taken some important steps towards doing so. It hasn’t been easy this season and when it’s not going for you, it’s easy to get down about it. That’s why it’s so nice to finally be getting over the hump.

Pascal Köpke: In our situation, it’s important to be good defensively. It’s not easy to get a clean sheet in Leverkusen but we did it. We knew they were incredibly capable offensively, and the keeper stood tall for a long time when I had my chance. But I know I should have scored there. You see that everyone is getting their chance and I’m happy to get back on the pitch after a long spell off it. You can see that the coaching staff have a great plan for us and we’re happy it got us the three points today. On Saturday we want to cap off a great week with a win to make it three in a row before we go on holiday.