Read every word of Ralf’s matchday Q&A

Ralf, did the comfortable win against Brentford serve as a reminder to everybody that, despite some criticism, we have good players here and should be optimistic for the future?

“Yes, absolutely. It was one of our best performances, especially in possession of the ball. We played well and you could see that the players had fun to play together in this game. But it’s about consistency, and this is what we lacked in the last weeks and months. We lacked consistency; we didn’t always play on that level. And it’s also a question of finding the right balance between what we can do on the pitch in possession of the ball, what do the other teams allow us to do, and what kind of defensive stability, physicality, do we need? This will also be an important issue for the recruitment process for the next season.”

We made more passes in that game than any other game in the Premier League this season. Is that significant?

“Yes, but it also had to do with the players we had on the pitch, with Juan Mata, with Nemanja Matic, with Bruno [Fernandes]. So we had three creative, offensive midfielders in midfield on the pitch. And it also had to do with the fact that Brentford allowed us to do that, because we kept them in their half and around their box. Those two reasons were important for that, for our performance.”