Nerlinger: That was a serious setback

Christian Nerlinger called Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Dortmund “a serious setback,” Uli Hoeneß lamented a “worst-case scenario,” and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was disbelieving: “It cannot be that Bayern Munich are 13 points behind the leaders.” Louis van Gaal was also in no mood to pull punches: “Unbelievably, we’ve lost again by not taking our chances. We’re a long way behind, but it’s also a long season.”

Reaction to Dortmund v Bayern

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge: “We’re concerned, no question about it, because we’re 13 points behind the leaders – we’re not happy about that at all. We’ll only turn the corner by winning. There can only be one motto for the next home match after the international break: we need nothing but a win. We have to start taking points. It cannot be that Bayern Munich are 13 points behind the leaders. We played well in the first half, but unfortunately, we’ve yet again failed to score from any of a number of chances. After we went a goal down, I didn’t see us react and try and put our opponents under pressure. Dortmund played on Thursday, so we should definitely have been putting them under more pressure. We don’t have the kind of squad which needs to be fully 13 points off the lead. We need to sit down and analyse this, and see that we turn the corner very quickly. We’re in a situation which cannot be tolerated at Bayern.”

Christian Nerlinger: “The time has come for a few home truths. We need to look hard at ourselves and wake up. That was a serious setback. We’re making it easy for our opponents at the moment. We’re having incredible trouble turning chances into goals. We’re investing huge amounts of energy, but we’re failing to force the ball over the line – and at the moment, the first shot at our goal is going in most of the time, and at some point, it’s impossible to recover, as we saw today. After we went 2-0 down, the team never looked like they believed in turning the situation around. We’ll close ranks and work through this situation. We were in the same situation last season, and everyone knows how it ended. We need to return to winning ways in our next home match.“

Uli Hoeneß: “Mainz are now 13 points ahead of us. This is the worst-case scenario. The time has come for us to stop deceiving ourselves.“

Louis van Gaal:“I can’t do anything else but repeat myself. We dominated the first half and made four or five chances, but out none of them away. Dortmund had no chances, but their first shot went in and they’ve won the match. The coach can’t stop individual errors, they happen or they don’t happen. It has a lot to do with confidence. Unbelievably, we’ve lost again simply by failing to take our chances. Obviously we’re a long way behind, but it’s also a long season. It’ll be hard, but we have to keep believing.“

Mark van Bommel: “We made life difficult for ourselves by not taking our chances. In the first half, we had three golden openings and two half-chances, but Dortmund had none. Basically, we should have been winning easily. Borussia didn’t improve after the break, we handed them goals through individual errors. Every player has to ask himself: am I giving 100 percent for the cause? We have to start right now, and run ourselves into the ground. We’re the better team in every match, but you have to fight as well.“

Mats Hummels (BVB, ex-Bayern): “We were a bit tired for the first time today. We were all feeling last Thursday’s battle. But we somehow still managed to win, even though I don’t think it was by any means our best recent performance. We knew if it stayed goalless untilt eh break, we had a chance of a result today.“

Nuri Sahin (BVB goalscorer): “The important thing for me today was to play well and take the points. We’ve beaten the best team in Germany, and we can be proud of that. We were very respectful at the start and we rode our luck too. I was feeling good about my free-kick. Things are going well, but we mustn’t start dreaming now. The fans can dream, but we have work to do.“

Jürgen Klopp (BVB coach): “We had trouble getting into the match and playing our football in the first half. Bayern were strong, Mario Gomez had a string of huge chances, although we defended passionately. I was pleased we made it to half-time today. What I said during the break was: ‘The best thing is that it’s still 0-0, and we’ve yet to play any good football. The minute we start playing some football, we have a real chance of winning.’ Both goals were the result of pressure. Bayern were good today and could have taken the lead, but they failed to do so. So it was out turn, and we did just that.”