Post match reaction
09.12.17
"The result is tough, but the performance was positive"
Hamburg were by far the better team but could not convert any of their chances as they drew at home against Wolfsburg. HSV.de gathered the thoughts of the head coaches and players following the 0-0 draw.
Twelve shots to two, but a 0-0 score line: despite a dominant performance, Hamburg didn’t quite do enough to come away with the three points. Fiete Arp, Gideon Jung and Dennis Diekmeier all came close for the home side and the Rothosen were only centimetres away from securing the win on multiple occasons. In the event, Markus Gisdol’s men had to settle for the draw, which was nevertheless their third consecutive clean sheet and seventh point from their last three home games. Here is all the match reaction.
Fiete Arp: It’s a shame I didn’t score today, but that’s part of football. I might have passed it on to Aaron, but my first thought was to go for goal. Playing against quality defenders like Brooks is a real challenge, but I’m getting stuck in and trying to improve. This is the second match in a row we haven’t scored; the result is tough, but the overall performance was positive. Now, we want to score against Frankfurt and get the three points.
Mergim Mavraj: We got another clean sheet today and showed real fight. Strong at the back and decisive up front – that was the key to our success after the winter break last season. It’s unlucky we didn’t get a goal today, but we can take more positives than negatives from the game. We were the better team from the first minute.
Dennis Diekmeier: We lacked a bit of luck this afternoon. At our end, we only let through one shot on goal and put in a strong performance overall. All the same, we come away feeling disappointed because we knew there was more in this for us. We need to take the positives from this game though, and try and win against Frankfurt.
Albin Ekdal: We deserved three points today. We might’ve scored three goals because we had way more shots than Wolfsburg. It’s a shame we couldn’t reward ourselves with a win, but we’ll take confidence because it was a strong team performance and our back four defended very well. Three clean sheets in a row – that feels good.
Christian Mathenia: Our defenders were brilliant today. They got stuck into every tackle so that I didn’t have much to do today. Picking up another point – like against Freiburg – could prove to be vital at the end of the season. We’re disappointed not to get the win because we created a lot of chances and really went for it from the first whistle. Luck wasn’t on our side this afternoon. It’s always nice to get the clean sheet as a goalkeeper, but the team really wanted three points. That’s the goal for Tuesday’s game against Frankfurt.
Jens Todt: It was a really good home game, but we’ve dropped two points here. We had more chances and it was a really strong performance from us. The best news of the day is another clean sheet. Our central defenders were brilliant. Wolfsburg have a lot of quality going forward, but that was completely neutralised. At the other end, we were really unlucky not to score and thus win the game, but this was an improvement to the Freiburg match.
Markus Gisdol: We were quite clearly the better team. The conditions were really tough, but that didn’t stop the team really playing well. We built up good pressure and carried out wave after wave of offensive moves. Our last two home games were 3-0 victories and a few more goals would’ve been deserved today, too. The way we approached the game was good, maybe even very good, but it wasn’t quite enough for all three points. What’s nice is that a lot of what we tried worked out.
Martin Schmidt: This was exactly the kind of game we were expecting. We knew Hamburg would press very high. I was expecting it to be difficult after the Gladbach win and I would’ve taken a point after how the first ten minutes went. After that we focused ourselves and showed real attitude, particularly in our work off the ball. Hamburg won all the big one-on-ones today in front of their home crowd. They’re very strong at the Volksparkstadion. Next up is Leipzig and I’m expecting a big response from my team.