The head coach of Dynamo Kyiv answered journalists’ questions after the team’s 2:1 victory over Kolos Kovalivka.
– Today our club celebrates its anniversary – 99 years since its foundation. It is an honor for me to work at this great club. The great Master, Valeriy Lobanovskyi, worked here. Today we also honor his memory – it has been 24 years since he passed away but his ideas are still alive and working. He made a tremendous contribution to the development of this club.
– What happened to the team in the second half? Everything looked good in the first…
– Mistakes started to appear in defense and players became nervous. We dropped off a bit, just like in the match against Shakhtar. We will draw conclusions and analyze why this keeps happening.
The opponent began to play with long balls while we started losing duels and second balls, which pushed us back toward our own goal. This nervousness led to the goal we conceded. Again we had problems with defending the second phase after rebounds, and we conceded from the same area.
However we made substitutions at the right moment which helped move the game away from our goal and allowed us to see out a logical victory. But the problem exists.
– Matviy Ponomarenko was once again absent from the squad. Will we see him on the pitch before the end of the season?
– We are working on making sure fans will still see him play this season.
– Are you seriously counting on Shola Ogundana who has not looked convincing in his last three matches?
– This player has not appeared in games very often but he has qualities that we want to use. We hope that the lack of confidence he currently has will through practice, training and our guidance turn into something positive, and that he will become useful for us and give us an advantage in the game thanks to his speed.
