Mladen Bartulovich: "We deserved to win more"

The head coach of "Metalist 1925" Mladen Bartulovich summed up the goalless draw with "Kolos" in a live broadcast on UPL.TB:

— Yes, after the final whistle, there was a little smile on your face during the conversation with Ruslan Kostyshyn, but during the match, emotions were definitely no less than on the football field.

— Yes, of course, a very emotional match. We knew what this game would be like. "Kolos" plays very aggressively at home, so it was important not to get involved in this aggression. I thank the guys for their attitude because they worked very well. At times it was difficult, but I believe that we deserved to win more, pressed the opponent more, had good opportunities, but it didn't happen. This match was heading for a goal, a bit nervy ending due to a red card. For me, it is unclear how the referee judges very well in the first half, and the second half is completely different: two yellow cards for us immediately and it started. This then leads to red cards.

— In the case of Kalyuzhny - he already had a yellow card. Did you not feel that maybe you should have substituted him a little earlier? For example, Kohut can play as a defensive midfielder. You left Kalyuzhny. Actually, this peak of emotions, the peak of these nerves, came at the end of the match.

— After the match, we still need to draw conclusions, but, of course, he is a very important player for us, so we rarely substitute him. It was a tough match, so we didn't change him. After the red card, there were 5 minutes left to play, so we made a substitution immediately and brought the match to the end. It was very important that we didn't concede a goal at the end of the game.

— You haven't conceded a goal in UPL for several games now, but ultimately, your team finds it very difficult to score goals. If we look at matches against teams in the top seven, you don't score much. What do you attribute this, perhaps, low conversion rate in such matches to?

— Teams play very tightly against us, today there were skilled players in Kolos' defense. Kolos also scores very little and concedes very little. I knew it would be such a tough match. There is work to be done, we will score more against such opponents in the future.