Hofmann: “We have to keep our heads up”

After the 3-2 defeat to RB Leipzig, Jonas Hofmann discussed how the game went, the late goal and the general situation that the Foals find themselves in. Borussia’s midfield man on…

…the knock-out punch in injury time: It’s a massive shame to concede so late on and come away empty-handed. That hurts. From Leipzig’s point of view it’s probably a deserved victory, and that view is probably justified given the balance of play. We fought for everything, though, and we would have liked at least a point as a reward for that.

…how the match played out: In the first half we we did well to hold them off, but in the second half we dropped off, unfortunately. If we had managed to keep the clean sheet intact a bit longer then we surely would have had more room to counter. Maybe our quick transitional play would have led to a third goal. But in the end we were just sitting too deep in the second half, meaning that we were hardly able to trouble them with attacks of our own.

…Leipzig’s ever-growing pressure: In the second half we didn’t manage to find any relief – and against such strong opposition it’s only a matter of time until the goals arrive. We were always chasing them, always just reacting and not playing for ourselves.We didn’t defend effectively enough and so we have to go home with nothing.

…his fifth Bundesliga goal of the season: I really can’t enjoy it at all, unfortunately. I would prefer it if we had won and I’d scored an own goal.

…a potential foul on Valentino Lazaro in the build-up to Leipzig’s winning goal: I think that Alexander Sorloth pushed him a bit with his hands, meaning that Tino couldn’t get back. On TV it doesn’t look like anything too dramatic, to be honest. The referee didn’t think it was enough, and neither did VAR, obviously. We have to accept the decision.

…the current state of play for the Foals: We lost, so I don’t see the game as a step forward. In football it’s all about results, and sadly our results haven’t been good enough in recent weeks. But it doesn’t help to get down about it now. We have to keep our heads up because we have some important games coming up, the next of which is against Dortmund on Tuesday. That’s what we’re focusing on. We'll keep going and we want to win the game no matter what so that we can reach the semi-finals. In the league we have to be careful not to lose touch with the European spots.

…the team’s relationship with head coach Marco Rose: I’m pretty sure that none of us are thinking about the change of manager right now. At the moment we still have a lot of games to play and we are just concentrating on those. The team has taken Marco Rose’s decision as professionals. It’s something that has been written about often enough already, so we can just put it to one side now. The coach is still putting maximum effort into things and we know that he will give his all for the club right until the end.