Roman Bürki, Matthias Ginter und Marcel Schmelzer spoke to the press after the match against Hertha BSC. The Dortmund players were largely pleased with their performance, even if Schmelzer admitted: ‘We could have finished the game earlier’. Nonetheless he added: ‘We now have 10 days to enjoy being league leaders and then we have to continue the hard work, so we can stay there as long as possible.’

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Roman Bürki: ‘It feels great to get a victory. We deserved it, because we’ve been working hard towards it. Compared to the previous matches we eased off slightly today, but at the end of the day we recovered and got the result in the end. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep the clean sheet, but all in all we defended against their pressure really well.’

Matthias Ginter: ‘Today we had the majority of possession and after 60 minutes the opposition started to get tired, always tracking back. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the 3-0.  A 2-0 lead is always dangerous and that was evident today. It was tight after they got it back to 2-1, even though we didn’t let them have anything else. Luckily we made it 3-1 and we’re very pleased to have got the three points.’

Marcel Schmelzer: ‘We didn’t play well, but somehow managed to get it to 2-0. We should have finished the game earlier. If we make it 3-0 there, then the game is over. Then it would have been a more comfortable afternoon for us. In fact we had to sweat for the last 10 minutes. We’ve achieved all our goals that we set for before the international break. The fact we are at the top of the table is an added bonus. We now have 10 days to enjoy being league leaders, and then we have to continue the hard work, so we can stay there as long as possible.’

„We wanted to sit deep“

Pal Dardai: ‘Congratulations to Dortmund, they deserved the victory. We had a plan for this match, we wanted to sit deep and absorb the pace of our opponents. At first that worked pretty well, unfortunately we didn’t take two good chances. Then after that we conceded a goal and had to open up. Well done to my team for not giving up at the end.’