“Not incisive enough” - Mainz match reaction

We gathered the thoughts from the players and coaches after Saturday's 2-1 home loss to Mainz 05.

Lars Stindl: We put in a lot of work and had a lot of the ball in the second half. Nevertheless, we didn't translate that into chances or carry enough of a threat in the final third. We had two or three half-chances, but we didn't do enough going forward. We weren't penetrative or incisive enough. We need to have more presence in the box and create shooting opportunities if we want to win games like that. When a game plays out like today and we get the feeling that it's not quite going our way in attack, it's important for our development that we at least take a point from the match.

Yann Sommer: It's a painful defeat and unfortunately the second in a row at home. Marco Rose's decision to leave in the summer certainly wasn't the reason why we lost today. It's a shame that he's leaving, but we as a team accept his decision. We want to work together with him to achieve success this season, so it's about looking forward and picking our heads up. We have a massive game in the Champions League on Wednesday and we want to put in a better performance than we did today.

Marco Rose: The defeat hurts, particularly as we were in a situation where we really could do with the points. We went behind with more or less Mainz's first shot. I think we reacted well to that. We got into the areas we had talked about around the penalty box and we scored a nice goal before the break. We weren't incisive enough to force Mainz deeper and create more goalscoring opportunities though. We conceded another two goals so we needed to score three ourselves to get the win, and of course we're capable of doing that. We're lacking a little bit of confidence in the final third at the moment. This defeat is on me; there has been a lot of unrest surrounding me this week. Nevertheless, we trained well and the lads we raring to go today. The result obviously doesn't do us any favours at the moment.

Mainz head coach Bo Svensson: We didn't play well in the first half and we were happy to be level at the break. The second 45 was a bit better, particularly off the ball. We didn't allow them many opportunities and offered more of a threat ourselves. We of course had luck on our side today. We can play better football than that, but we will definitely enjoy the win anyway.

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