Gladbach dismay at Europa humbling

5 October 2012 03:42

Borussia Moenchengladbach players were left to rue a poor performance as they lost their UEFA Europa League match with Fenerbahce 4-2.

The German club took the lead before conceding three poor goals and were unable to recover on Thursday.

Defender Martin Stranzl said the players have to take responsibility for the performance.

"The last 15 minutes of the first half were very bad," Stranzl said.

"We gave the ball away a lot and made a lot of technical mistakes in our game.

"We started to rush our play and began to blame each other. This mistake you shouldn't do, you need to stay calm, but we discussed this in the changing room.

"We need to learn our lesson. When you concede four goals it's mentally difficult."

Gladbach defender Filip Daems echoed Stranzl's sentiments and was in no doubt that Fenerbahce were deserving winners.

"I think they were the better side today," Daems said.

"We conceded too many easy goals and gave away the ball far too cheaply.

"At the moment we haven't been playing well, we need to improve our defence a lot.

"We need to stand stable and we need to keep clean sheets. But we can't manage it as we would like to.

"We must be more compact, before its pointless to discuss some situations during the game."