“The integration of the new signings is going very well” | Marco Rose

Marco Rose spoke to the media following Leipzig’s narrow 2-1 defeat to Udinese in last night’s friendly. Here are the most important parts:

Marco Rose on…

… the friendly

• “The most important thing is that we all got through it injury-free. Not everything has come together on the pitch just yet, which is also down to the fact that we have lots of new players and the training camp is a lot of hard work. We were often too untidy in possession but you could also see that the team were always willing to try to win the ball back and everyone covered the necessary ground.

  Tomorrow is about regeneration and picking up from where we left off. It’s been a very decent training camp so far.”
   

… Lois Openda’s first goal

• “I think the integration of the new signings is going very well. The boys are in constant communication with each other which I like. In the end, it all comes down to winning as many games as possible. Lois showed in the friendly that he can help us do just that. He did really well for the goal and showed how easy football can be when you play with determination.”
   

… Xavi Simons’ position

• “Xavi pressed from the front when we were out of possession and he was able to find the spaces in which he felt comfortable when we had the ball. We also use these friendlies in order to test out where the players feel the most comfortable in the system. Chad, for example, played as a left-back today, which is an unfamiliar position for him.

  We’ll analyse the video footage from the friendly and continue to work based on what we saw.”