“Our attack has got to improve”

The 05ers had “mixed feelings” after a good performance against VfL Wolfsburg that earned them a point. Mainz didn’t manage to achieve their goal of kicking off the new year with a win on Saturday afternoon and, after the game, it became clear that the team’s attack will need to improve if they want to start winning. Despite picking up a “good point” in the sporting director’s opinion, Mainz’s players know exactly what they need to work on in the coming weeks.

Martin Schmidt: “It’s a good point to pick up in a relegation battle. It was an even game, but Wolfsburg had better chances so a draw is a fair result. We wanted to dominate, but Wolfsburg kept on slowing the game down – even early on in the match – and disrupting our rhythm. Then, we fell behind. It was important that we managed to equalise and stand our ground. All we need now is to be more clinical and to make better decisions up front. It’s definitely something to work on. It’s clear that we’re going to have to win games if we want to get away from the relegation zone.”

Silvan Widmer: “The equaliser came at the right time. It goes without saying that we wanted to get the three points today. Even though we didn’t lose, we’re still disappointed. We want to keep our heads in the game, and we’ll try to keep on improving and go one better next weekend. At the end of the day, it was an even contest that could’ve gone either way. We know that we’ve got room for improvement. I’m still confident that we’ll have more of a presence in the box and start to look more dangerous. We didn’t give up, which was a plus.”

Karim Onisiwo: “I’ve got mixed feelings. We got off to a good start, put pressure on them and dominated the game at times. All of a sudden, we’re trailing after a counterattack. We pulled ourselves together and scored a fantastic goal to level things up again. We would’ve liked to make it 2-1, but it’s clear that our attack needs to improve if we want to create clearer chances and then convert them. Things are too sloppy in the final third, which means that we’ve only managed to get one point. Next week, we’ve got another chance to get the three points we need against Union Berlin.