“Played into Schalke’s hands” - #BMGS04 reaction | OneFootball

Christoph Kramer: Apart from the opening minutes, I think we had a really good first half. The second half definitely wasn’t good though. We got lured into playing the kind of game that doesn’t suit us. That very much played into Schalke’s hands. We lost our structure; we got caught up in Schalke’s hectic style and started playing lots of long balls. I also gave the ball away poorly two or three times between the 60th and 70th minute, mistakes that I wouldn’t normally make. There were others that did the same as well. That obviously lends the game a certain chaos. We managed to keep Schalke at bay, but we know that we’re more than capable of showing other qualities at the same time. We just couldn’t produce them in the second half.

Jonas Omlin: We went into the game determined to get the win. We started well, but we didn’t deserve it in the end after a poor second half. We didn’t create enough movement and gave the ball away too easily. We can’t allow that to happen in a home game. Our carelessness led to some cheap chances for Schalke. The point that we take today is down to some hard defensive work.

Daniel Farke: You can’t always get your way in football. I knew that it would be a very tough match against a side who will give their absolute all to stay in this division, and that’s exactly what we got. It was a battle. I don’t think we were good enough technically to be able to take control of the game early on. That led to the game playing out the way it did. I wasn’t happy with the opening period, because you need to keep hold of the ball in attack in order to establish command, and we weren’t attentive enough. We got into our flow a little bit more after that and applied good pressure. We lost our structure in the second half and played the game the way Schalke wanted us to. We were too eager, and then when we had a few sloppy moments in our passing game, we became hectic. I’m not happy with the second half. We lacked quality to create that decisive moment. The only positive is that we managed to keep a clean sheet for the first time in a while.

Schalke 04 head coach Thomas Reis: The way my team went about today’s match was very positive. We dealt with a side that’s very strong at home well and even had the better of the game in the second half. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to reward ourselves with three points. Gladbach were better in the first 45 without really putting us under immense pressure; we were left chasing the ball a little bit. We played with more confidence after the break and played more man-to-man defensively. We were also a much more aggressive and could have easily won with that second-half display. Ultimately though, you could see why we’ve ended up drawing 0-0 again. It’s looking good at one end, getting a second clean sheet in a row, but we need to be more incisive going forward and start scoring goals.