"Plenty of positives to take with us!"

Safe and secure at the back, but quiet on the front foot and lacking the necessary guile to break the deadlock. It was therefore only natural that Hertha’s clash with Bayer Leverkusen ended goalless on Sunday (29/11/20). It is a point to be proud of against the side ranked third in the table, however. "After the match against Dortmund we wanted to show a reaction here, and we can take plenty of positives from this game,” said captain Dedryck Boyata after the second draw of the season. herthabsc.de sums up the reaction to the final match of November.

Dedryck Boyata: After the match against Dortmund we wanted to show a reaction here, and we can take plenty of positives from this game. Obviously we would have liked to win, and three points would have done us a lot of good, but we can live with a point against such strong opposition – especially away from home. Leverkusen have a lot of good players, so we had to stay compact and put them under pressure with our pressing. We did that well. Last season we beat them here and at home, which gave us the belief that we could get something today.

Alexander Schwolow: In the end it’s a deserved result. We were much more solid and consistent than against Dortmund, which is good to point out. Clearly we would have liked to stay a bit calmer in one or two attacking situations, but it’s good to take a point away from Leverkusen, a team that is playing really well at the moment. We had to perform at least as well as we did in the first half against Dortmund, and we managed to do exactly that for the whole game. It’s important to take a positive feeling into the derby, which is the next big task for us.

Sporting director Arne Friedrich: We defended better than last time – that was important. After conceding so many goals last match, the whole team wanted the clean sheet no matter what cost. We wanted to keep putting Leverkusen under pressure and use our somewhat fresher legs, but we didn’t pose a great enough threat on the whole. Unfortunately we didn’t have our best game in attack and were lacking a little lacking in penetration, but a point against Leverkusen is OK. Overall we did our job well and will happily take this point back to Berlin.