After the game against Eupen, we gathered reactions from Casper Nielsen, Bjorn Meijer and coach Ronny Deila.
Casper Nielsen: "Good performance from the whole team."
A pretty heavily battered Club Brugge deservedly won against Eupen. Casper Nielsen put Blauw-Zwart on their way to a clear victory against the Pandas around the quarter-hour mark.
"We started the game well and then it's important to get an early lead. We succeeded and from there we were able to systematically extend the lead. At halftime, the game was more or less already played, although I have to admit that the last quarter of our first half was actually not that good," Dane pounced immediately. "Because a number of basic players were not here, it was a bit of a search at first, but the replacements did more than decent. We scored four goals ourselves while we did not allow any goals against. I can only be proud of the boys because in the end it was a good team performance. And this on a field that is not really that great. But anyway, the spoils are in and that is of course the most important thing."
When asked how important next week's city derby is, the midfielder immediately had a ready answer. "Every game is of great importance and certainly in the position we are in. We really do need to keep possible point losses to a strict minimum. It just comes down to looking at it match by match, keeping full focus and continuing to go for the win every time." (MV)
Bjorn Meijer: "We needed to win 6-0 or 7-0."
Bjorn Meijer almost scored Bruges' third goal this evening, but the crossbar kept the Dutch defender from scoring a goal. Club ended up winning smoothly 4-0 against KAS Eupen.
"It's taking the three points and moving on again. It's a solid victory, not very exciting, but fine for us. We were missing some players with qualities today, but their replacements have them too. You don't know how it would be with them, but I didn't notice. The second phase of the first half got a little sloppier. If you look at the match, you should actually win 6-0, 7-0 instead of 4-0. Now we have important matches coming up again and that's the best thing about soccer. We are looking forward to it. It's nice when Brandon scores though, he's a quiet guy. You see he is very happy when he scores and so you become happy for him too. It's also good for Nusa to just play soccer again. I'm happy he's back on the field, but I didn't see that he had a difficult period." (KN)
Ronny Deila: "I saw a lot of nice actions."
Coach Ronny Deila looked back with satisfaction on Blauw-Zwart's 4-0 win over KAS Eupen.
"It was a difficult match. We played another important game last Wednesday and now we had to get back to work, which meant three matches in six days. We are struggling with a lot of injuries and were missing other players as well. There was some nervousness before the match, but the players started well. We got some chances and also scored the 1-0 pretty quickly. We could have scored more, but this was enough to keep the three points at home and we have a clean sheet, which is also important. Lately everything seemed to fly in that was kicked towards our goal, but fortunately that was not the case today."
After the whistle, there was a lot of talk about a phase early in the match involving Mignolet. "I haven't seen the phase, so I can't say anything about it. What I can say is that strange things happen, every week. Both for and against us, but also with other teams. I sometimes wonder if they see other matches, especially when you have VAR. Normally I say little about the refereeing because once you have a decision with and once against, but since December you have a lot of weird phases across all matches. That needs some thought, for the sake of our soccer. However, I can't say much about this particular phase, wan I have yet to watch it."
With Skóraś and Nusa, two players came to the kickoff who have not always made many minutes lately. The coach was very satisfied. "I saw a lot of nice actions. Michał started for the first time in a long time and has speed, technique and great running ability. Nusa played in a position less familiar to him as a playmaker. He did play there in the past and told me he could do it, so I put him. I also thought about starting Homma at that position, but ultimately chose Nusa. Therein also lies his talent: he also did well in a completely different role. We will continue to work with him. He feels good in his skin at the moment and is happy with the answers he got. Jutglà also did well and scored again. Now we look forward to next week's match against Cercle." (EV)
Review the press conference here: