FC St. Pauli

Head coach Timo Schultz: "Hannover deserved to take three points today. It's the first home defeat for us this season and it doesn't feel good. We did well in the first 20 to 25 minutes and had three really good efforts – unfortunately they didn't go in. Hannover then created a string of corners after their first chance through Sebastian Kerk. They were really dangerous from corners today and that's how their first goal came about. In the first half, I was basically satisfied with the way we played but we were already experiencing problems with our defensive cover, especially against Maximilian Beier. We addressed that at half-time. We need to talk about our risk management in the second half. At the back, we were constantly one against one against their quick players, we were losing possession up front and stopped playing our patterns. As a result, we lacked control in front of our defence and Hannover were able to create chances too easily, some of which we served up ourselves. We were no longer able to fashion any clear-cut chances the opportunities we did have, we didn't take. The situation with the twice-taken penalty was indicative of that. Even they wouldn't go in. It was a day to forget for us."

Guido Burgstaller: "We started well and had some opportunities but lacked precision in front of goal. After their opener, we lost our way a bit. We couldn't get into the game in the second half. We gave them too much space and let them make too many passes. Maybe we lost a little of our fluency after we fell behind and were no longer with it mentally. Maybe your legs get a bit heavier then. We kept trying but it didn't work. We were too far apart and had no grip on their players when we lost possession. Hannover had lots of space and made good use of it. They were clinical on the break. Hannover were the better side over the 90 minutes. We deserved to lose by that margin. There were things we didn't do well and so we'll analyse them and hopefully come away stronger from the defeat."

Leart Paqarada: "We made a good start but then some errors started creeping into our attacking play and we were penalised by some good counterattacks. If we'd taken our chances in the first 20 minutes, things might have gone differently – but we didn't."

Christoph Dabrowski (Hannover head coach): "It was an exciting game which I think we deserved to win. We showed great discipline pressing the ball and were resolute going forward. St. Pauli play a lot of attacking patterns and we had to survive a spell in the first half where they were actively shaping things. We did that and then took the lead. All in all, it was a very compact performance with lots of energy – there were a lot of elements in there that correspond to my idea of football and so I'm very satisfied."

Photos: Witters