Horn: "We'll achieve our goals"

The good news for FC Köln is that they remain unbeaten at home. The bad news is that they only managed a 1-1 draw against promoted side Ingolstadt.

In an interview with DFB.de, former Germany U21 international goalkeeper Timo Horn offered his assessment of the past week, his team's successful start to the season, their poor chance conversion against a defensively strong Ingolstadt side, and 1. FC Köln's aims for the season.

Question: Mr Horn, your 1. FC Köln side have taken four points from their last three games. How would you sum that up?

Timo Horn: We would have liked to take the three points from the Ingolstadt game and end the week with six points. Since the 6-2 loss in Frankfurt, we've responded well and won the derby against Mönchengladbach 1-0. Similarly, against Ingolstadt, it was a case of remaining patient. Unfortunately we haven't been able to put the ball in the net often enough. The 2-0 loss in Berlin was obviously sub-par, although we were unlucky when it came to putting our chances away. On the whole, we're in a good position, so we can live with the solitary point from the Ingolstadt match.

Question: But it could have been more…

Horn: Yes, it could have easily been three points for us. If you consider the whole game, with the two chances for Yuya Osako in the closing stages, we would usually win that match 3-1. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Question: Was it particularly hard to create chances against an Ingolstadt side who were so strong at the back?

Horn: Ingolstadt have had a very good season so far, with eleven points on the board. They defended well, even if they didn't do much after the equaliser. We did our job very well; we didn't create many chances, but when we did, they were very good. Unfortunately we couldn't turn them into goals.

Question: Anthony Modeste scored again. Was he the key player against Ingolstadt as well?

Horn: Tony is obviously a huge asset. A lot of our game was based around long balls up towards him. Especially because we knew how difficult it would be to penetrate Ingolstadt through the middle where they are so compact. We also didn’t give the opposition much, unfortunately though we conceded the goal from a set piece [former Köln player Marvin Matip]. Other than that, Ingolstadt had hardly any chances at all.

Question: Are you lacking in another goalscorer to go with Modeste?

Horn: If you look at the chances that Yuya had, we should have scored at least once from them. But we can’t be too hard on him: The first chance was squandered well by Tobias Levels, and the second time keeper Ramazan Özcan. That’s obviously a shame and just pure unlucky.

Question: You’ve had a good start to the season: You and your team have collected eleven points from seven games. Do you now have to rethink your aims for the season?

Horn: We don’t want to lose our heads, we know what our aim is, and it’s not Europa League. We’re keeping our feet on the ground and will try to keep collecting points. We’ll see what comes of it at the end of the season. We also have to give everything against the so called smaller sides in the league to get points. As you saw, it’s never a given.

Question: So you wouldn’t class yourself as one of the so called "smaller sides" anymore?

Horn: (laughs) This time last season we were in a very similar situation to what Ingolstadt are in now. We were also very compact at the back and always tried to keep the clean sheet. We want to take the next step this season of course, that’s obvious. We’re well on our way to doing so, and have improved a lot up front. Now we need to start trying to find the same consistency in the defence that we had last season. In terms of our goal difference [10 for, 12 against], things aren’t looking too good, mainly because of the Frankfurt game. But against Ingolstadt we defended well again, but for from the corner that led to the goal. If we continue like this, we will achieve our aim.