Disappointment was the chief emotion in the Bayern camp after the 2-2 scoreline against Bolton Wanderers. “That goes down as two points dropped,“ acknowledged Ottmar Hitzfeld, although the General remained upbeat about his side’s future prospects: “I’m still confident we can win the group.“ Captain Oliver Kahn criticised his team for “carelessness. You can’t afford that in Europe, you have to concentrate right to the end.“
Reaction to Bayern v Bolton Wanderers:
Ottmar Hitzfeld: “The crowd’s basically been treated to a good and exciting game with plenty of chances from our team. We were unlucky to go a goal behind so early, that was exactly what Bolton wanted, because it let them sit back and defend. But we recovered well and piled on the pressure, thanks to the outstanding Ribery. After we went 2-1 up we seemed poised to get a third, we basically had the match totally under control – apparently so much under control that some of my players thought we could relax. Then we went and conceded a totally unnecessary equaliser after a throw-in. That goes down as two points dropped, but I’m still confident we can win the group.“
Oliver Kahn: “We became very careless in the last 20 minutes. We kept on attacking, but we forgot that teams in Europe are capable of scoring at any time. It was carelessness pure and simple, and a lack of total concentration. You can’t afford that in Europe, you have to concentrate right to the end.“
Christian Lell: “Overall, we lacked a cutting edge today. We had plenty of chances before and after the break, but we simply didn’t make the most of them. Then we went to sleep for a moment. But we’ve got to turn our attention to the future, we’re in action again the day after next. We need to come away with something from Stuttgart.“
Gary Megson (Bolton): “We were missing twelve players tonight, but we still showed Bayern very little respect. But I have to say they’ve got world-class players all over the field, and they’re a really strong side. We didn’t have as many chances as our opponents, but we had a couple of good ones, and our application at the end was terrific. I especially want to single out our captain Kevin Nolan, he kept on driving us forward.“
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