Lahm: "We can play better"
Munich - Runaway leaders FC Bayern Munich may have maintained their nine-point advantage at the top of the Bundesliga standings with a trouble-free 2-0 win at home to Greuther Fürth on Saturday, but captain was far from satisfied.
After the final whistle, the 29-year-old discussed his side's performance, criticism from sporting director Matthias Sammer and the appointment of Pep Guardiola as coach for next season.
Question: What did you make of the news that Pep Guardiola will join Bayern?
Philipp Lahm: It shows the status FC Bayern has. It's fantastic, but we're not thinking about that yet because Jupp Heynckes is still our coach until the end of June. That's why we should stop talking about it because nothing's going to happen until the summer. We should be focusing on the difficult tasks ahead in the coming weeks.
Question: Jupp Heynckes has surprised everyone by saying he could still continue his coaching career elsewhere...
Lahm: If and where Jupp Heynckes continues his coaching career is something only he can decide.
Question: At times today it seemed the team struggled to shake off the events of the last few days and to play as well as they have recently...
Lahm: That's true. It's difficult to concentrate on the everyday things again, but it's all part of being at FC Bayern.
Question: How happy are you that the Bundesliga is back under way again after the winter break and all the speculation about coaches?
Lahm: After so much preparation you're always happy to get back into the action and play for points again. It doesn't matter how good your training was over the break, the only thing that matters at the start of the second half of the season are the three points. We managed to pick them up against Fürth, but we know we can play better.
Question: Bayern's winter training went very well. What was your personal opinion of it?
Lahm: It's less about winning warm-up matches than putting yourself in a position to win games that matter. The fact we beat Schalke 5-0 in a friendly was nice for us, but not so nice for them.
Question: Did Matthias Sammer's words of warning [that Bayern still have room to improve] have the desired effect?
Lahm: We'll see whether they did or not over the next few weeks. It didn’t seem to work today because I don't think we played well. However, I believe we'll improve over time.
Question: How does the team deal with such criticism from the sporting director?
Lahm: Matthias Sammer is right to talk about it - not only when the team loses, but also when we win. It's his job to address things like that, especially when we're doing well. The players pay more attention to it then than when we lose, because there's already plenty of external criticism then. The sporting director doesn’t need to add his two cents when we lose.
Christoph Gailer reporting from the Allianz Arena
