We gathered the reaction from the players and coaches after Borussia’s 2-1 win over VfL Bochum on Sunday evening.
Jonas Hofmann: We were very energetic and managed to dominate in the first half, but we weren’t able to keep that up after the break. When you’re behind, you want to have a lot of the ball and play it around – you have the do the same when you’re 2-0 up though to tire out your opponents and force them deeper into their own half, and we didn’t do that. We weren’t on our game as much in the final half hour and gave the ball away too often. That led to us losing our grip on the match and it ended up being a nervy finish. It’s a very important win as it keeps us in the hunt for the European places.
Joe Scally: We obviously had momentum on our side after the cup win against Bayern. It was important to go ahead early and we were able to build on that. It became tough for us at the end. We have to analyse what we did wrong in the closing stages so that we don’t make the same mistakes next time. It was also the third game in the space of a week, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. Ultimately, we got the three points and that’s what counts. We have to keep at it now. We’re in Mainz next week and we want to go there and win as well.
Adi Hütter: I would say it was a hard-fought victory. We were playing in a different formation and did a great job in the first half, linking up really nicely. We weren’t able to kill the game in the second half though. Bochum never gave up and fought until the very end. Once they got back to within one, we can only thank Yann Sommer that we managed to end up winning. We obviously weren’t able to kick on from Wednesday’s performance, but it’s not easy mentally to play a must-win Bundesliga game just a couple of days after such a monumental and emotional match. So I’m very happy with the win, even if I’m not overly pleased with our second-half performance.
VfL Bochum head coach Thomas Reis: Gladbach aren’t normally at our level, so all in all, I’m happy, obviously not about the result, but I’m pleased with the way my team played, particularly in the second half. We often failed to make the most of some promising situations in the final third. We’re often criticised for not creating enough goalscoring opportunities, but it’s hard to create many more chances in Gladbach than we did today. We should have done more with the openings we had, and I think that Borussia would have been more clinical with the same opportunities. We need to keep working on that aspect.
