“We need to collectively deal with this situation”

Domenico Tedesco:

We were very shaky in the first ten minutes. We were overawed by the amount of balls coming at us; there were so many crosses coming in. Bayern therefore deserved their lead after eight minutes. James shouldn’t have been able to catch us out like that though. It’s so disappointing to now have gone behind to early set-piece goals in Wolfsburg, Mönchengladbach and today against Bayern, especially as we are constantly training set-pieces as well.

After going behind we were solid and put a good shift in. We were constantly trying to cause Bayern problems. Both strikers worked non-stop and never gave up. Ultimately we were just missing something going forward to get that goal. We just couldn’t get past Bayern’s two central defenders today.

Niko Kovac:

Many people would say that it was a fairly easy win today, but I wouldn’t agree with them. We had to work very hard for our victory and therefore I would like to pay a big compliment to my team. To win at Schalke after a Champions League game in Lisbon is a great effort, as the VELTINS-Arena is always a difficult place to come for visitors. Schalke may have only had one real chance, but the game was still fairly open. Schalke are normally dangerous at set-pieces too, so we had to be careful with those. The fact that there were no problems at the back for us today is also another sign that my team played well.

Ralf Fährmann:

To go behind from a set-piece was particularly disappointing for us. I hate repeatedly saying that we were unlucky because that is a poor excuse. Defending set-pieces was one of our biggest strengths last season, whereas now we are struggling with them. We desperately need a win to get back our old form and confidence. It won’t help if we just put our head in the sand. We need to collectively deal with the situation we have found ourselves in. We need to try and eliminate the mistakes, but also at the same time get our heads up and go to Freiburg with some confidence, even though it will be a brutally difficult match. We don’t need to perform any magic there; we just need to play our own game. Our virtue of grafting away is required more than ever now.

Sebastian Rudy:

We had hoped for more before the game. We should have defended their first goal better. We were in the game in the first half, won the ball back a lot and should have made more chances than we did. It was trickier to get a grip on the game in the second half and thus we didn’t create many chances. This being the case, Bayern ultimately deserved the win. I still believe that it wasn’t a poor game by us though. I’m not looking at the table. The only thing that currently matters is how what we do on the pitch, which we do need to improve. The next important game is on Tuesday for us. We are desperate to get our first three points.