Marius Müller: Now we really need to hit our stride

FC Schalke 04 claimed three important points on Saturday (3/2) against Eintracht Braunschweig. schalke04.de has summarised the post-match reaction.

Karel Geraerts:

Being under lots of pressure is nothing new at Schalke. We faced a team today that has won their last four games, which isn’t easy to do in this league. Braunschweig have a lot of quality and are tough to play against. I’d like to praise my players for their performance today. We had a lot of the ball, especially in the first half, but had to be careful when they broke after winning possession back. My players remained calm and waited for the right moment. It was a close game with few chances. We fought extremely hard in the last 25 minutes, they kept pushing for an equaliser. It was important to see my team give everything to secure the win.

Daniel Scherning:

Congratulations to Karel and Schalke on their victory. It wasn’t easy to get into the game here. We knew the atmosphere would be intense and Schalke would start the match with fire in their bellies. Both teams had a chance to go 1-0 up early on, though ours with the Murkin clearance was the bigger one. We had some issues when they had possession and our defending wasn’t quite spot on. We then switched to a 3-1-4-2 formation and that worked better. Schalke then had the best chance of the first half when they hit the bar, plus the dangerous cross right at the end. We knew at half time that whoever scored first would probably win the game. Both teams again could have scored at the start of the second half, before their goal came in probably our best period of the game. We saw today that you always have to be on your toes against a team full of talented individuals. We made some attacking changes and tried our best to make it 1-1.

Marcin Kaminski:

It was important for us to get the win today after two straight defeats. Everybody knows that this past week wasn’t easy. We can only be happy for a short period, we have to recover and then start preparing for the next match. There was a period of the game where we didn’t have enough possession and were chasing our shadows a bit. We didn’t allow them any clear-cut chances after taking the lead and defended our one-goal advantage resolutely.

Marius Müller:

Picking up the three points was really important for us today. Now we really need to hit our stride. As a goalkeeper, it was good to keep a clean sheet and secure the win. From our preparations ahead of the game, we knew that it would be a real scrap. If you don’t match their intensity, it would have ended like it did against Kaiserslautern. We need to deliver. We started today and need to carry on next week. Today’s performance needs to be the standard; we have to play like this in every game.