Marco Rose: 'The body language at 2-0 was as if we were 4-0 down already'
Borussia Dortmund coach Marco Rose was disappointed with the body language displayed by his players in Tuesday's 4-0 defeat to Ajax.
| Marco Rose. | Photo: Borussia Dortmund/OneFootball |
"It's always a bad day when you lose 4-0. At half-time I told the lads that we started well before falling behind to another goal from a set-piece. The fact that Ajax are a good team and would create chances was clear, but our body language at 2-0 was as if we were 4-0 down already," Rose told Amazon Prime after the game.
"Up against a really strong opponent, we had three or four situations when we could have played things out much better in the final third. Their goalkeeper was exceptional and Ajax were worthy winners, who showed us where we need to improve and what we're striving for," he said.
Dortmund captain Marco Reus, whose own goal gave Ajax the lead, echoed the words of his coach.
"Ajax had a lot of chances and made the most of them. The first goal is my fault, I misjudged the delivery. Nevertheless, we had some really good opportunities with Erling. The game was too open from our point of view and Ajax were the better team on the night," Reus said.
"We weren't energetic enough in the challenges and didn't make our presence felt. That was a problem for us tonight and something we envisioned differently. It's hard to find the right words and have to collect ourselves, but the goals Ajax scored and the ease they played with needs to be addressed."
