A 1-0 defeat for Club Brugge on the road to Union. Read all post-match reactions below.
Hans Vanaken: "Ball just didn't fall right"
Club suffered a 1-0 defeat away at Union. At the end, Tresoldi had a chance to equalize, but Scherpen saved his header. Captain Vanaken kicked the rebound well over. "We did everything we could: push forward, we kept on pushing and pushing. You can just hope that ball falls right, but that didn't happen," captain Vanaken sighed.
Union left little space to play ball. "You know you have to defend well with everyone. They scored in a scrimmage, we almost did through Tresoldi. I also had a chance, but kicked it over. It was one of those games that didn't really deserve a winner."
Simon Mignolet: "Couldn't put enough pressure"
Beaten by Zorgane from close range in the opener, Mignolet was able to prevent the 2-0 in the second half with a clever save on a free kick by Schoofs. "Three minutes of added time was not that much, I reckoned, but I had seen it coming. Too bad we weren't allowed to take that corner kick by the end of injury time."
Union managed to score after a corner kick. "You know it's their thing. They are tough: both in attack and in defense. They have the necessary strength and try to use it against us, but we couldn't put enough pressure on them. We didn't play all that bad, but we weren't dangerous enough. Getting closer to their box, that final pass was missing. At the end we could have scored after a standard situation. They play a physical type of football so we tried to play football through the ground. At certain moments that worked out nicely, but the precision in passing was not there today," Mignolet said.
Ivan Leko: "Not enough today to outwit them"
The clash at the Dudenpark was won by Union by the smallest of differences, seeing the team from the capital move a little further ahead in the standings. Coach Ivan Leko was quite disappointed after the match. "The main reason we lost today is because we were unable to unravel their organisation," the Bruges coach began his analysis. "They defended very well and played a long ball game a lot, counting on what they're good at: textbook situations. This also allowed them to open the score with a second ball on a corner kick and that was ideal for them. They have a solid defensive organisation and are strong on the break. Unfortunately for us, we were not good enough in attack today. We had the ball quite a lot, but we didn't do enough with it. They were comfortable waiting for us in that area. These are two different approaches towards playing and understanding football. Today their formula proved to be the most successful."
Club started the match with Forbs, Diakhon and Tzolis. "I don't regret it at all, because Vermant wasn't quite fit today. I probably wouldn't have started like that if Romeo was fully fit. So it was not a matter of trying to outsmart them. A player who scores 7 goals in 8 matches and who is top in energy and pressing, as well as scoring...Of course I would have started with him. However, he was not ready and then you have to make some choices. Both Tresoldi and Tzolis were options for me and I found that Tzolis was very hungry to play. To play one-on-one against Burgess, you have to make it as difficult as possible for him. If you were to ask Burgess who he would prefer to play against, he will say Nicolò (Tresoldi), because that is a box player/target striker. However, we wanted something different, so I don't regret my choice. In the end, it wasn't a question of one player either, because our football in general was just not good enough today to outwit them. So we are very disappointed, because we are now coming off a period where we had three good wins and we wanted to show that again today. Unfortunately that did not pan out today," a disappointed Ivan Leko concluded.