Draxler: 'Nothing's been decided today'
VfL Wolfsburg may have picked up a priceless win over Borussia Mönchengladbach on Matchday 25, but both camps expect the race for the top four to go right to the wire.
VfL Wolfsburg 2-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Goals: 1-0 Draxler (15’), 2-0 Kruse (17’), 2-1 Raffael (23’)
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Julian Draxler (Wolfsburg midfielder): "We really fought hard today, Gladbach are a tough nut to crack. For me, they play really good football, they're a real threat going forward are are really flexible with Raffael and Lars Stindl etc. It was clear we would have to play as a unit and fight, and fortunately we scored two early goals. It’s important that we’ve been picking up points and playing with togetherness, but nothing’s been decided today. I think it’s going to be really close right up until Matchday 34. We’ll see who’s up there at the end of the season."
Max Kruse (Wolfsburg striker): "We’re all really happy to have won for the second game in a row and to have beaten a direct rival. It would have been tough to come back from it, if we’d have lost today. We’ve closed the gap on Gladbach to two points and now we have to try and push on against Hoffenheim next week."
Yann Sommer (Gladbach goalkeeper): "It’s a really annoying defeat. Wolfsburg didn’t make it easy for us, they were compact and the early goal played into their hands. We didn’t give up after going 2-0 down, though, and hit back immediately through Raffael. We had enough chances to equalize in the first half, but unfortunately we couldn’t make it happen. The fact we’ve dropped a place in the table doesn’t matter. We dropped three points against a direct rival, that’s why the defeat is doubly hard to take."
Granit Xhaka (Gladbach midfielder): "We’re all massively disappointed. It’s hard to explain why we lost. Wolfsburg essentially had two good chances and scored from both of them. We played really well, created plenty of chances, but only took one of them. If you pass up opportunities like that, it’s difficult to win the game. Wolfsburg are back on our heels after the win and have made things tighter in the table. We really need to pick up a win again away from home, otherwise it’s going to be hard to stay up there."
Havard Nordtveit (Gladbach midfielder): "It’s tough after conceding two goals in the first 20 minutes, but we made tactical changes and got back into the game. We have to keep going and focus on the next game. It would have been nice to have taken at least a point here, which I think we deserved."
Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg head coach): "Obviously we had a good look at Gladbach’s game against Stuttgart. The plan was to use the available space around their back three – and that worked well with our two early goals. There’s always a danger when you take an early 2-0 lead, though, and when Gladbach made tactical changes, we lost our way a bit and lost our grip on the game. It was a real fight after that, and my team acquitted themselves really well. They dug in and defended really well against a really strong side, but it was a slightly fortuitous win."
Andre Schubert (Gladbach head coach): "It’s not the result we were looking for. We started well and did what we set out to do. Perhaps we were too attack-minded, though, because it was a positional error that led to the opening goal. Unfortunately, we conceded a second soon after. We tried to shore things up after that and we quickly pulled one back. We kept them busy in the second half and had numerous chances to equalize. Wolfsburg were just more effective than us today."
