We failed to make it to extra time
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
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Post-match press conference of the Dnipro-1 manager Dmytro Mykhailenko
- Based on the match development, Shakhtar's advancement to the final is quite natural. We failed to make it to extra time. It seemed that the opponents stopped creating chances regularly, but conceded a disappointing goal late in the game, and it was hard to come from behind. We got tired, plus we had little time.
- Was the forced substitution of Yurchuk the key one? How serious is his injury?
- The severity will be clear tomorrow. It's hard for me to say. Andriy Klyschuk came on and made the crucial save after set playThe conceded goals are unlikely to be his fault. The first one was top-quality one, the second one just rebounded. It seems to me that even if this has affected it, it was insignificant. I don’t think that Valerii would’ve coped with the first goal.
- Why did you produce so few shots?
- Because the opponents kept us far away from their goal, our counterplay failed. Our players faced a very high pace and good counterpressing quality. We couldn’t even make transitions from defence to attack. In the first half, there were no shots at all, in the second one - just two, but they didn’t carry any danger. All this is related to the opponents.
- Paulo Fonseca rarely praises any of his counterparts, but he complimented you on your work and on your team’s work, he said he was really looking forward to seeing you in the Premier League. How competitive are Dnipro-1 against the background of this match vs Shakhtar?
- Still, it’s hard to say. It depends on the objectives and on the spot in relation to which we might be competitive at the moment. We see that the level of the Premier League has dropped. But it’s hard to say whether we will be competitive there to fight for the top spots. Probably no. And just to play and score points we might well do even with the current squad.
- How important for you as a coach are the meetings with such opponents?
- Of course, we must consider the match primarily in terms of experience. Our major objective for the season is still to advance to the Premier League. I guess this encounter will give us some tremendous experience, especially to the young players who have never met with the Champions League group stage participants. I hope that today's clash will allow us to believe in ourselves more, and also to understand the level which we should strive for.
- After winning the ball, Dnipro-1 most often tried to attack positionally, without sharply passing it forward, hoping that someone could break away ...
- We dropped too deep. We had such a game plan: if the opportunity arose, we demanded that they make quick transitions to attack. And when you are 70 metres away from the opponents’ goal, it’s difficult to make those transitions. Therefore, we tried to hold the ball and carry out positional attacks, but the level of pressure was high, so we didn’t succeed on all occasions. There were single moments, but more often it didn’t work. This is due to Shakhtar’s great play and the fact that we dropped deep.
- Was the forced substitution of Yurchuk the key one? How serious is his injury?
- The severity will be clear tomorrow. It's hard for me to say. Andriy Klyschuk came on and made the crucial save after set playThe conceded goals are unlikely to be his fault. The first one was top-quality one, the second one just rebounded. It seems to me that even if this has affected it, it was insignificant. I don’t think that Valerii would’ve coped with the first goal.
- Why did you produce so few shots?
- Because the opponents kept us far away from their goal, our counterplay failed. Our players faced a very high pace and good counterpressing quality. We couldn’t even make transitions from defence to attack. In the first half, there were no shots at all, in the second one - just two, but they didn’t carry any danger. All this is related to the opponents.
- Paulo Fonseca rarely praises any of his counterparts, but he complimented you on your work and on your team’s work, he said he was really looking forward to seeing you in the Premier League. How competitive are Dnipro-1 against the background of this match vs Shakhtar?
- Still, it’s hard to say. It depends on the objectives and on the spot in relation to which we might be competitive at the moment. We see that the level of the Premier League has dropped. But it’s hard to say whether we will be competitive there to fight for the top spots. Probably no. And just to play and score points we might well do even with the current squad.
- How important for you as a coach are the meetings with such opponents?
- Of course, we must consider the match primarily in terms of experience. Our major objective for the season is still to advance to the Premier League. I guess this encounter will give us some tremendous experience, especially to the young players who have never met with the Champions League group stage participants. I hope that today's clash will allow us to believe in ourselves more, and also to understand the level which we should strive for.
- After winning the ball, Dnipro-1 most often tried to attack positionally, without sharply passing it forward, hoping that someone could break away ...
- We dropped too deep. We had such a game plan: if the opportunity arose, we demanded that they make quick transitions to attack. And when you are 70 metres away from the opponents’ goal, it’s difficult to make those transitions. Therefore, we tried to hold the ball and carry out positional attacks, but the level of pressure was high, so we didn’t succeed on all occasions. There were single moments, but more often it didn’t work. This is due to Shakhtar’s great play and the fact that we dropped deep.