"It was very important to start the new year with a victory; especially considering the fact that we were only sixth in the table prior to the match," said Marco Reus following the 2-0 win against Wolfsburg. The captain reflected on the match and then looked ahead.

"The final matches we played last year did not pan out the way we had intended them to," declared the captain, before adding that Wolfsburg are "the most unpleasant opponent we could have restarted against. You could see that they play very well, especially how they attack and take lots of risks. We're obviously very, very happy that we managed to finally keep another clean sheet and that we were able to pick up the first victory of the new year."

During his analysis, the 31-year-old stated: "We did not make such a good start to the game in the opening 15 minutes, especially as far as the challenges were concerned. We hadn't found the rhythm that we'd hoped to have from the beginning. As the first half progressed, we regained more of that rhythm and had good opportunities but could have done better when it came to seeing one or two situations through. During the break, we said to ourselves that we wanted to keep applying pressure but that we obviously needed to keep defending well."

The opening goal from Manuel Akanji was doubly important. "It gave us more confidence. In the end we got another to make it 2-0. The three points are the most important thing today. We've shown that we can compete even in difficult moments. It's a lot of hard work at the moment, we're not quite in our natural flow. I believe that every victory and every goal bring us more confidence and that will allow us to rediscover our flow in the games that lie ahead. We can now regenerate for one or two days and in total we have a week in order to prepare ourselves for the next match. It'll be quite a challenge but we're looking forward to it! Leipzig are a good opponent who play at the same level as us." (tl/br)