Having defeated stubborn Riteriai at home 2-1, Hegelmann have now won their third match in a row and are only trailing current A Lyga leaders Sūduva on goal difference. After the match, head coach Andrius Skerla offered his thoughts on the game.
One of A Lyga title contenders for this season – Hegelmann FC – are now joint leaders at the top of the Lithuanian top flight, with 3 wins and one loss after 4 games. Yesterday, they hosted newly promoted side FK Riteriai from Vilnius, who, despite playing spirited football thus far, are still at the bottom end of the table with only 2 points to their name.
Reflecting on the win, Andrius Skerla noted that, despite the result, this was not an easy match:
Today was a game of two halves and the first half was, maybe, going more in our favour – we scored our two goals and everything seemed under control. But the picture changed in the second half as Riteriai came out and threw everything they had at us. They had nothing to lose and, towards the end of the match, you could see that they are sending their tallest players into our box to capitalise on their height advantage. We had problems with that. But, overall, even though we did not perform as well in the second half, we still had some really good chances, including the one at the end of the game when we should have scored our third goal. It was a very difficult match and the most important thing is that we came away with three points after the final whistle.
Skerla admitted that his team may have let up a bit too much after scoring the two goals in the first half and acknowledged the serious pressure that Riteriai brought to bear on his players in the second half. Hegelmann kept losing first balls and failing to collect second balls in the second half, which is how they conceded the goal eventually, the coach reflected.
When asked about improvements in positional play and the work done during the international break, Skerla conceded that much still remains to be done:
There is definitely room for improvement. We played friendly matches during the international break and those were very helpful. Of course, many of our players had left and some played more while others played less but, yes, our positional play looked better before the break than it did today. There is a lot of work still to be done to improve this and we are aware of certain elements that we need to fix. But as I keep saying, the most important thing is to keep improving and to keep winning.
Hegelmann are back in action next Sunday as they travel to Telšiai to face off against Džiugas, who narrowly lost their opening match of gameweek 4 to Sūduva.