André Villas-Boas: “The loss is my responsibility”

The head coach on the reasons for the loss at home, the rotation of the lineup, the goals given up and the wish to correct the situation as soon as possible.

— What happened today? Why didn’t the team look like themselves, especially in the first half? 
— I think that everyone saw today that we had problems. This situation is my responsibility. We didn’t create real scoring chances, after which we could have scored, except for the first two minutes at the end of the first half. It’s obvious that against a very organised team that isn’t good enough. We had problems with everything. Our football, our style didn’t work. This is a bad loss and not our level. I trust our players, we were champions last season and I am sure that we can right the situation.

— Do you think that the problem was with the rotation of the lineup, keeping in mind that the team has played with one lineup for a long time? 
— It’s  fair question, but if we had one everyone would have said that the changes worked. Danny is a real professional, our captain. Anyukov also has experience playing on the flank. They played against Krasnodar this past season when we won 4:0. It didn’t work out today and this match is a little like the one against Terek this past season, which we also lost.

—Today showed that there wasn’t a leader on the field. Why didn’t any of the players take on this role? How much influence did the second goal that Lodgyin gave up have on the game? 
—No, we have a lot of leaders and each of them have a lot of emotions, hot blood — this is Hulk, Garay, García, Danny, Shatov. If we lose 0:2, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have leaders. Today our strategy did not work. Krasnodar came here to play compactly and counterattack, and we were counting on holding the ball and creating changes. If we go back to the rotation, the Krasnodar has really changed their lineup and you could ask them the previous question, but they won. Krasnodar was the better team on the field and Zenit didn’t have their best match. The second goal did have some kind of an influence — there were a lot less opportunities at 0:2 to come back.

— Can you say that Criscito and the position of the left defender are going to be a bargainer’s chip with the limit? 
— This is the situation that we have. Everyone saw the rules. I don’t see other clubs experiencing this. Yes, today we had to sacrifice someone and this came to Criscito.

— Can you say that Dzyuba never really got into the game? How tough is it for him to play in a mask? 
—The mask does add some discomfort, but that’s not the problem. Today everyone wasn’t moving very well and this is the responsibility for each and every one. However, we trust Dzyuba and and we are going to work the entire week in order to correct the situation.

— Can you say that under this scheme Danny doesn’t have as many variants to strengthen the attack? 
— I’ve asked the club about players, talked to them about strengthening and then a week before the start of the season the rules change. I named concrete names, and now all we can do is wait. This last week we lost Rondon, someone that could have been useful today. We need to widen our lineup. We have good players, but there aren’t that many.