Reaction to Bundesliga game at Schalke – Jonathan Tah: ‘We had the chances’

Bayern had to settle for a point away at Schalke after a goalless draw on Matchday 2 in the Bundesliga. “When you play against a compact, aggressive team that does things well, you need to score your goals in those moments. In terms of chances, we could’ve won this game, but that’s football,” said head coach Vincent Kompany afterwards. “Maybe we lacked something at times with these big chances. We also had a quarter of an hour where our positioning wasn’t optimal and we lacked the speed in our passing to be able to hurt the opponent,” added captain Manuel Neuer. “We maybe lacked a bit of luck in key moments. We had the chances, had a huge amount of possession. Obviously we could’ve created more chances by getting in the box more and taking shots,” concluded Jonathan Tah. fcbayern.com rounds up the reaction from Gelsenkirchen.

Reaction to Bundesliga game away at Schalke

Vincent Kompany: “First of all, congratulations to Schalke. The guys fought. I’ve seen and experienced games like this. We had our moments and big chances. We had two or three one-v-ones with the goalkeeper. When you play against a compact, aggressive team that does things well, you need to score your goals in those moments. In terms of chances, we could’ve won this game, but that’s football. We can’t waste too many minutes in a game like this. It’s about tempo on the ball and us putting pressure on the goal. Still, we can’t forget that we had our chances. It’s not like we’re leaving here without having had any good chances. When the opponent deserves a point, that’s the way it is. Then we need to look at how we score the goals next time.”

Manuel Neuer: “Loris Karius was very good and definitely the right choice for Man of the Match. We had three big chances that he kept out. That was definitely key to us not winning this game. Maybe we lacked something at times with these big chances. We also had a quarter of an hour where our positioning wasn’t optimal and we lacked the speed in our passing to be able to hurt the opponent. Apart from that, the stats are in our favour.”

Jonathan Tah:“We maybe lacked a bit of luck in key moments. We had the chances, had a huge amount of possession. Obviously we could’ve created more chances by getting in the box more and taking shots. Still, we had three or four clear chances that we didn’t take. The opponent ended up defending with 11 men. Honestly, we hadn’t expected that, but you always get teams who you analyse but then they sometimes come up with a ‘Bayern plan’ where they do things completely differently. We’re used to that and can adapt pretty quickly. Our set pieces weren’t good today, but I wouldn’t put it down to that. The chances came from elsewhere.”

Reaction from Schalke

Miron Muslić (head coach): “We had a good plan that needed to be carried out almost to perfection, because you can’t just defend against Bayern. They always have solutions, plus the individual quality. We intended to defend and also to enjoy the suffering to an extent. That’s what made us good last season. Obviously you need some luck in certain moments, but we earned that today. There’s no greater compliment you can give the team than keeping a clean sheet against Bayern. I think they’re the best team in the world. A lot has to work out against them: mentality, approach, passion and also being able to put up resistance. Bayern don’t stop, but neither do we.”

Loris Karius (goalkeeper): “It was great for me. I only had to shout to keep going, move up, drop back. Real credit to the guys for what they did. They kept so much away and made things so incredibly hard for Bayern. The guys really worked hard until they couldn’t go anymore. Real praise for every individual. That’s what we’re about. Everyone today can be proud of their performance.”

Robin Gosens (defender): “I’m just trying to enjoy it right now. It’s the first time I’ve got to play here. I couldn’t have imagined it much better. We all ran the extra metre today. We knew it’d be tough if we allowed ourselves to be isolated in one-v-ones out wide. Bayern’s players are just too good, so we always doubled up – sometimes three of us. You can only do it when you’re prepared to go beyond the limit. Our greatest achievement is maybe that we were able to maintain that defensive stability and stuck to our plan over 95 minutes. We worked on that all week and executed it perfectly. That’s how we made life tough for Bayern. Obviously we didn’t have many moments of calm with the ball. We would’ve liked a bit more relief. Maybe that's why we ran out of steam a bit toward the end. But at the end of the day, I'm happy.”

Read more from the game in our report: