Nastasic: 'It was a difficult game'
Gelsenkirchen - After grinding out a hard-fought 1-0 win over Hannover 96 on Saturday afternoon, FC Schalke 04 new boy Matija Nastasic declared himself satisfied with the Royal Blues’ display.
FC Schalke 04
Marco Höger's first-half strike turned out to be the only goal of the game as Roberto Di Matteo's side produced a battling performance in the second half to keep Hannover at bay and hold on for all three points.
bundesliga.com gathers the best of the post-match reaction from an entertaining encounter at the Veltins Arena...
Matija Nastasic: "It was a very difficult game for us. Every match after such a long break is going to be tough, but I think we did a very good job."
Marco Höger: "I’m very happy to have scored the decisive goal, but if truth be told it’s about time [I scored again]! I hadn’t scored a goal since my cruciate ligament injury and have been hoping to get on the scoresheet for some time now, but it’s nice that I managed to today. I knew Christian Fuchs often crosses towards the back post, so I held my run, took the risk and hit the ball first time into the net."
Fabian Giefer: "We played well as a team and defended our goal very well. As a goalkeeper it's always important when the people in front of you are defending well, and if we manage to grab one or two goals at the other end so much the better. We had a lot of chances and could have scored more goals, but Hannover also put us under pressure. At the end of the day we got the victory, so we can be satisfied. I think we can build on this performance. Of course everything didn't go exactly the way we planned, but overall it was a good display from us."
Hannover 96
Ron-Robert Zieler: "Both teams had chances and I thought we actually did very well in the second half. Coming to Schalke is never easy and that proved to be the case again today, but our performance gives us something to build on. Having said that, we’re obviously disappointed with the result."
Christian Schulz: "We’re disappointed because there wasn’t much between the two teams today. In the second half we took control of the game and moved the ball very well. Schalke had one or two chances on the counter-attack, but we were lacking that little bit of cutting edge which can decide games that are as tight as this."
