FC St. Pauli

Head coach Fabian Hürzeler: “It was an excellent performance. It's not just about the goals, today we showed the efficiency we lacked in the first few games. I'm a coach who looks at the way we play football against what we set out to do. Today was another step in the right direction. We played with incredible control, kept our shape superbly well, were very dominant and had a high pass completion rate as a result. Our counterpressing was very good because we kept the distances short, which is how you create dominance. We got our reward with some fantastic goals. We'll remain humble and keep working hard because we have some quality teams coming up in the next few weeks.”

Connor Metcalfe: “That was by far the best goal I've ever scored, as you could probably tell by my reaction. When we scored so early and went on to get three in the first half, it felt like we were back on track at long last. We had to cope with the loss of several players and the game showed the importance of every single player in the squad. The position I played in today isn't a new one for me because I play there for Australia as well.”

Marcel Hartel: “The result should give us a boost for the next few games. It has to give us confidence. We have another tough home game against Schalke next week, but the performance and the goals can give us the confidence we need as we prepare for it. Connor's goal stands out for me today, but the others were really good as well. You don't score goals like that every week. Today we had the luck we've been lacking in the last few weeks, which meant we could show we have the quality to score goals.“

Oladapo Afolayan: “We all worked hard for the win today. Today I simply set out to shoot on sight. It was obviously good for me personally to get the goal. More importantly, though, it helped us to return to winning ways. Connor socred an unbelievable goal, as did Eric, Lars and Cello. We didn't do anything different today compared with previous weeks – when we have a sight of goal outside the box and an opportunity to shoot, we pull the trigger. That came off a treat today and we showed we can score goals. It went really well even though we had a few changes in the squad, we played very well, which shows how good and how important every single player is and how hard everyone works for it every day.”

Marcel Rapp (Kiel coach): “Congratulations to St. Pauli on the win. Goals give the game a certain direction, that's nothing new. The game kicked off and St. Pauli had two shots in the first eight minutes, both went in the top corner and we were two-nil down. The tempo of the game increased then and St. Pauli had the confidence to exploit the space really well and led 3-0 at haf-time. We pulled one back soon after before another shot found the top corner and it was 4-1. It's hard to hold your own on a day like this.”

Photos: Witters