The Germany national team rued a host of missed chances following the 3-0 Nations League defeat to the Netherlands on Saturday evening. DFB.de gathers all the key quotes in Amsterdam.
Joachim Löw: "It wasn’t all about the poor chance conversion. We played quite well until the opener, we had our chances, which we didn’t put away, and had control of the game. After we conceded, you could see that we were lacking confidence because the results haven’t been so great in recent months. Then we just fell apart in certain areas and lost our defensive line. It’s difficult to answer why we are struggling for goals. We’re creating chances, but simply aren’t putting them away, which would have been very important for our confidence. The fact is, we had so many chances in the last two games, but couldn’t score. That’s really bad. You can lose. 1-0 would have been acceptable. It’s bad that we fell apart like that in the last ten minutes. The players have to take responsibility for that and not just run around like headless chickens in the final ten minutes.
But we also saw against France that our more experienced players can still play at this level. The young players like Sane provided at lot of stimulus, but they need more time. They also couldn’t find the back of the net. We don’t want to be relegated in the Nations League. Now we need to show character to prevent that. We will see that in France and in the final home match against the Netherlands. We need to show a reaction, otherwise we really will be relegated."
Mats Hummels: "Our problem is our poor chance conversion, clearly. I don’t know if you can see things any differently. We lost 3-0 in a match that we should actually be winning. It’s not one player missing all the chances, we’re all having chances. It’s a mixture of bad luck and incompetence. Now we come away with a 3-0 defeat and will get a pounding for it even though we didn’t do too much wrong. We need to experience that winning feeling again, like we did in the 2-1 win against Peru, when we took our chances. When you look at how the games have gone, it’s crazy to think we we have no points and a minus 3 goal difference."
Manuel Neuer: "We created fair few chances on goal. Our corners weren’t too good, however. We weren’t creating anything from them. We had enough chances to score one or two goals. Then we concede two late on, when we’re obviously very open. I don’t know if every single player is feeling insecure. That’s something every player needs to ask himself. We all made it clear to the head coach that we are ready for the challenge. When you lose that game, you obviously face a lot of criticism and people speak very negatively about the team. But today could have gone very differently, as you could see."
Timo Werner: "We played very well at the start and created a lot of chances. We let Holland do all the running, created chances down the wings and through the middle and did everything we wanted to. Then this corner came in like a torpedo and all of a sudden they have scored. That was a real kick in the teeth. We tried everything in the second half and also had our chances, but we just couldn’t put them away. Then we were open at the back and get caught on the break. We showed that we haven’t just forgotten how to play football. Converting chances is our biggest issue. We need to score goals. Our heads have all dropped, but we can beat France."