Gladbach bosses blame Itakura for “bitter” red card after defeat to Hamburg

Ko Itakura's red card initiated Borussia Mönchengladbach's 3-1 defeat to HSV in the opening game of matchday 9 in Bundesliga. The game was tied 1-1 when the Japanese international saw his second booking only four minutes after the restart.

“If you get a red card shortly after half-time, that's bad,” Gladbach's sporting director Rouven Schröder spoke about the incident in a post-match interview with Sky Sports. “Ko (Itakura) knows that himself. The game was so intense, and you have to finish it with eleven men.

“We talked about it at half-time. It's very tough when you're already on a yellow card. Ko also has a certain amount of experience. He needs to handle things differently,”

Gladbach's coach Alexander Blessin also criticized the player who returned to the club after an unsuccessful spell at Ajax. “The turning point was the yellow-red card. If we had finished the game with eleven men, we definitely would have gotten something out of it. It's obviously bitter," said the coach who replaced Eugen Polanski after Gladbach's poor start to the campaign. 

“We gave it our all, but it's just stupid because we ended up with ten men due to such a silly mistake.”

There were similar words by the goalkeeper Daniel Batz and returnee Kevin Diks as they felt the red card was the turning point of the game. The 29-year-old Itakura returned from a muscular injury at the end of October as Friday's game marked his return to the lineup since the matchday 4 defeat to Mainz.

Following the international break, the cellar-dwellers will face three teams in the top six, with trips to Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen after a home game against Borussia Dortmund.