SV Werder Bremen came from behind to win their second pre-season friendly against Karlsruher SC (2-1) thanks to debutant Oliver Burke’s brace. Head coach Ole Werner was pleased with the performance but sees a lot of room for improvement. The players agreed with their coach: The game against KSC was better than the one played against Oldenburg, but there is still work to do ahead of the new season.
WERDER.DE summarises the match reaction of Ole Werner, Clemens Fritz, Marco Friedl, Oliver Burke and Niklas Stark:
Ole Werner: “KSC defended deep and we weren’t precise enough to find a real breakthrough. It was extremely difficult for us to create goalscoring opportunities. Gaps got bigger in the second half, and Benni Goller and Oliver Burke were able to use one of their strengths, their speed, to create chances. It was an intense game, and you could see plenty of legs getting heavier and the end of both halves, something which is completely normal at this stage of pre-season. Despite that, the lads did really well and we played a lot better and with a greater intensity than we did against Oldenburg. I’m very pleased with this friendly victory, and it was a good performance.
The goal we conceded was unnecessary and something which should never have happened. Even if we want to get the ball moving quickly, we need to stay calm and take a look at the situation firstly. Things like that happen, especially when we’re not yet at one hundred percent. We dealt with going behind well, though. We played a good first half and overall, a very tidy game.”
Marco Friedl: “We’re not quite yet 100%. It felt good to get 45 minutes more match practice. The mistake that led to their goal should obviously not be happening, and we were behind for a large part of the game. Pavlas wasn’t just annoyed, but all of us. Regardless of where we are in pre-season, it shouldn’t have happened. We know that and we’ll look into what happened. However, I did see an improvement from the Oldenburg game. We’ve still got more work to do, but we were in control of the game and in the first half in particular we could have scored one or two goals. We were good off the ball today and didn’t allow our opposition many opportunities. That said, we do have some aspects to improve upon.”
Niklas Stark: “We started well, but then we saw parts of our game which clearly need working on. That’s normal for a second pre-season friendly, though. It’s actually good that they happened, because now we can work on them. We won 2-1 and are pleased to get our first victory of the season. We’ve had a few intense days, and I think you could see that at times today. We need to keep working on our fitness, but there’s plenty of time for that. It looked a lot better from a tactical perspective today compared to the first friendly. I felt as though I worked well with Marco Friedl, we have a great understanding of each other despite only getting to know each other recently.”
Ole Werner: “Oliver Burke played well today. You can see he’s lacking a bit of fitness, but he scored twice today, which was great for the team. It was a decent start for him.”
Marco Friedl: “Oliver was important today, as well as the times at which he scored his goals. He’s made a super impression in training. He’s a solid, robust player and is very quick. If he carries on scoring at that rate, he’ll be really important for us. He’s a great lad, from what I’ve seen so far. We’re going to try and get him better integrated into the team now. I think it’s great after he didn’t have the best year that he scored twice today. It’ll give him confidence going into the next few weeks.”
Oliver Burke: “I’m very happy with how I’ve started and with my Werder debut. It was a great feeling to put on this shirt for the first time and go out onto the pitch with my teammates. The two goals really mean a lot to me. The coach and my teammates still don't know me too well, so I'd like to show them what I'm capable of. I’m hoping to build on my performance today and improve my fitness levels. Sometimes, in pre-season friendlies, the quality is not always there for the entire game. Everyone’s legs were tired from training, but in parts we played really good football. It was important for us to pick up the win.”
Ole Werner: “In Lee Buchanan we’ve found the next piece of our jigsaw, which pleases me. There isn’t too much left to sort now. It’s good that he’s come to the training camp so that we can spend a lot of time together. He can get to know the team and our style a lot better. Lee is a quick player, a strong runner and passer of the ball, and he has good technique. He can still be a bit braver in attacker, but he’s still young and will need time to develop as a player, and we’re going to work together with him on that.”
Clemens Fritz: "He's a very talented player who has a lot of experience despite still being young. We think he's got a serious amount of potential, and he plays with dynamism and real intensity. What he brings to the table is certainly very promising, and we’ll of course need to give him time to get used to things. Players from the English leagues, like Buchanan and Burke, bring intensity and robustness with them which will do our game the world of good.”
