Simon Mignolet: "We can learn a lot from the first half"

"Yes, what can I say?" were the first words of the goalkeeper of the Blues. "We were certainly not satisfied with the first half where I had to make no less than eight saves and that in a home game. No, we couldn't be satisfied with that. In the end, I'm happy that I we can keep the three points home. We were 1-2 behind just after halftime and you think all the work will have been for nothing. However, in the end we found a way to keep the three points home  and we are satisfied with that. We also know that the first half has to be much better and we have to learn from that. So you see, after barely three weeks of preparation, we still managed to secure two difficult victories, namely the Supercup against Ghent and the opening game against Racing Genk. These were not easy wins but it could have been worse."

The 1-1 draw at halftime was still a fair result after all. What has been said in the dressing room? There was not much to say, we knew we had to do things differently," said Simon Mignolet. "We had to start winning duels in the first place because we hardly did that during the first 45 minutes. We were too soft in every respect and you have to be able to respond to that. That's something we did. You always have to find the mentality to fight back through different soccer and in the end we succeeded. The outside world always wants us to win, of course, especially the Club fans, but for us it's true that we can learn a lot from that first half. The coach already told us that we had to find a way to win in the opening phase of the new regular league but that it was going to be very difficult. We have done that now, admittedly not with the most beautiful soccer, but these three points are very important against a really tough opponent." (FDC)