Dimitrios Grammozis: We cannot perform like that

Two head coaches, two different moods. Dimitrios Grammozis was frustrated with the result and his team’s performance after the 2-1 defeat to Fortuna Düsseldorf on Sunday (13/2). New Fortuna coach Daniel Thioune, on the other hand, was really pleased with his side. Malick Thiaw and Martin Fraisl also gave their opinions on the game after the final whistle.

Dimitrios Grammozis

Dimitrios Grammozis:

I can’t take many positives from this game. We were really, really poor – I have to be brutally honest about that. We weren’t at the races from the first second. We weren’t right mentally and were always one step behind them. You can’t perform like that and that’s why we fully deserved to lose. We cannot play like that. I can’t tolerate this performance.

We can’t just go back to our normal day-to-day business after a performance like this. We will clearly analyse the mistakes, though we will have to look ahead soon because we’ve got the next game at home to Paderborn on Friday already. We weren’t the side we have been in many games this season – a team that plays at a high intensity, with power and one that wins a lot of challenges. It wasn’t like only three or four players had a bad day, it was the whole team. I’m confident that we’ll be better against Paderborn.

Daniel Thioune:

My team showed today that we wanted to put them under a lot of pressure on the ball and we didn’t want to allow them much possession. Thanks to doing this, we had a few chances in the first half, but we failed to take them. Going into the break 1-0 down didn’t tell the full story, I wasn’t happy with the scoreline. Overall though, I’m really pleased with the lads after the full 90 minutes. We made one or two tactical alterations during the break and then we were right on it. The quick equaliser and the second goal then really helped us. I believe it was a well-deserved victory in the end. It’s a small step in the right direction for us.

Malick Thiaw:

Every individual needs to look at themselves and ask what went wrong here in Düsseldorf. None of us performed well. Our next game is already on Friday, so we need to put this performance in the past quickly. We can’t afford to drop points unnecessarily like this. This cannot happen again.

Martin Fraisl:

We didn’t start the game well at all. A lot of us didn’t perform to our best. We made too many mistakes when building up play. On some occasions our passes just went straight out, on others our first touch was poor or we lost it trying to dribble with it. On top of that, we often played it backwards instead of going forwards. Our heads weren’t right today, I have to be honest. We’ve still got 36 points to play for and we need to collect as many of them as possible. Despite losing here in Düsseldorf, we’re still in touching distance of the top three.

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