At Rot-Weiss Essen, things are not going well in offense yet – Essen’s Marcus Steegmann is still defending his attackers.

Rot-Weiss Essen had some good chances in the first half of the third division game against Viktoria Cologne. But it went into the locker room scoreless, with two old patterns emerging. Up front, opportunities were missed, and at the back, an individual mistake by Jimmy Kaparos almost led to another goal against – Bryan Henning’s shot hit the crossbar and went on the line.

During the break, Marcus Steegmann, Director of Professional Football at RWE, gave his views on a number of topics on MagentaSport:

Marcus Steegmann on…

… the current situation at RWE: “Overall, we are not satisfied. 16th place is not what we had hoped for. There has been a major upheaval – in the whole club. We knew it could be bumpy, and that’s how it turned out. We’ve lost important people, and we’re now in the process of getting the team to gel and take the next step. I’ve seen more than good tendencies here lately.”

… the first half against Cologne: “We had some good chances, but unfortunately didn’t score. Cologne are very well organized, but we still had two great opportunities.”…

the guests hitting the crossbar: “We want to build on our play and Jimmy Kaparos makes a mistake, it’s hard to say whether the ball was in or out. With RWE glasses, the ball was still on the line.”

… the lack of points so far: “You never have time in football. Basically, we also expect the increasingly better training performances to lead to points. I don’t want to put a figure on that in games. We just have to get points quickly.”…

the lack of goals from the forwards: “Basically, we have confidence in our forwards. Leonardo Vonic had 15 scorers last season, I expect the next steps from him. Manuel Wintzheimer didn’t have an easy year at Arminia Bielefeld, but he’s a great team player. But he has to do more too. Everyone in the team is called upon to pose a goal-scoring threat. That’s what distinguished us last year, including from set-pieces. I’m against criticizing the offense so much at this stage.”