Maccabi Tel Aviv and Mladen Krstajic began the second league round with a 1-1 draw against Bnei Sakhnin who were reduced to 10 men for the second half at Bloomfield as the Serbian coach summed up the match. “I would rather focus on the game” he replied when asked about the opponents’ time wasting antics. “We knew this game was going to be tough as many teams in this league play in the same way. In terms of finding solutions and improving our game in the future, this is something we will keep to ourselves. It is very important for us to work very hard in training on our finishing in the final 30 meters of the pitch. We dropped two points today and I am not satisfied with that. Today I received a picture about some of the problems the team has. The players gave their maximum but they clearly suffer from a lack confidence upfront which prevents them from taking risks – and it is our duty to improve that”.
On the quality of his squad, Krstajic replied: “We had a problem with several players who were ill over the past few days. We need time in order to get our ideas across and for the players to implement them- only then we will discuss their qualities. at the moment we think that we have quality players and a good enough team. We might make some changes in various positions and focus our work on the top third of the pitch. We didn’t create enough chances today and from that we are not satisfied”.
In the wake of the forthcoming January transfer window, Krstajic said: “We are thinking about everything we need to do in order to improve the team. We will hold internal discussions within the club but the most important thing for us is to implement our methods with the players and only concentrate on what we must do in the future”.
