Ralf’s press conference: Every word

How frustrated have you been that you’ve not been able to find the answers to the issues that you’ve been talking about? Defensive issues, structural issues, not scoring goals when you needed to or as regularly. How frustrating has this period been for you?
“We spoke about that quite at length in the last couple of press conferences, you have to see it in different areas, periods of time. I think until we dropped out against Atletico, and I think this was a vital blow, I think since then we’ve lost confidence and energy in the team. But until then, I think we stabilised the team defensively compared to the team that shipped four goals against Watford away. Until that Atletico game, we were stable defensively, we also had a few games where we scored goals, when we played well. We spoke about that. But what didn’t happen was this development didn’t happen in a sustainable way. So, we couldn’t keep that on a regular level. Either we had problems to score goals, or we had problems to prevent goals from being scored against us. Since the Atletico game, we just didn’t find our form, our shape again and this has got to do with confidence, a little bit also maybe with mentality, team spirit, togetherness and we just fell short in those areas. This for me is the biggest disappointment, that we didn’t manage to develop, how should I say, a certain team spirit that helped us even in the difficult parts of the league. This happens also to other teams. This is for me, the biggest issue in hindsight.”

We spoke about the issues of the club over the last few months, what would you tell Erik ten Hag that are the positive things that he will be getting?
“I still strongly believe that there are a core of players that are top, that are well worth and good enough to play for this club and hopefully most of those players will still be here next season. As I said earlier on, if the board, Erik, the scouting department will help them with all the issues that I can bring in to help them. If we bring in the right mentality players, the right quality players, I’m positive that we can not only bring this club back on track, but back to the top and this is what it’s all about in the next couple of weeks. Maybe, it will not happen and be possible in one transfer window, but I’m very positive that it can happen in the next two or three windows.”