Whether the international period was a factor…

It’s always difficult to say this, but I don’t think it has anything to do with it. Players came back strong and I also saw a team today that wanted to fight until the end. So it wasn’t about energy, in my opinion, but we just had the ball a lot and we had to create from possession. If you look at the goals we’ve scored so far, we also scored quite a few from transition moments, from winning the ball back and then going into transition. But the other team played a lot over our pressure with a lot of long balls, so as I said, we got the ball mainly in our last line. Then it wasn’t good enough today because too many individual performances in possession were not at the level that I’m used to from these players.

When asked whether he considers today a setback ‘for the process’…

Not for the process, but it is a big setback. When you lose a home game it is always a setback, especially when you play against a team… we never know, maybe they are going all out for Champions League tickets, but normally this team does not finish in the top 10, so when you lose a game against them it is a big disappointment. Although today they were very well organised and structured.