FC St. Pauli

Dapo Afolayan on…

…his performance at Kiel: "I came away from that game feeling I could have played a bit better. Obviously, I contributed with two goals and in the first half I was good, but in the second half I came off it a little bit and that's something I have to work on. Kiel are a good team and they're up there in the league for a reason. They surprised us a little in the second half, but we deserved to win the game. It shows that if you're not fully concentrated the whole game and you get a little bit sloppy, it's dangerous."

…his current form: "I'm feeling confident and working a lot with the coaches and the staff. I've found myself in good goalscoring positions and obviously it's great if I can help the team with goals. I've taken my chances when they've come. That happens sometimes in football. You can be in the right place at the right time, and sometimes it's the opposite and you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Things are falling for me at the moment, but it doesn't change anything. I still want to keep working and improving. Before I left Bolton one of the things I wanted to do was to score more important goals – to score goals that mean something for the team. When I play, I play to win. And if I'm scoring goals, obviously it helps the team to win games. Long may that continue. I looked at my first part of the season and I felt I could have helped the team more. I want to contribute more goals and more assists. If we keep playing like this, we can achieve something."

…the Schalke game: "Every game in this league is incredibly tight. The teams never give up, every game is like a hard-fought cup final. We expect the exact same thing on Friday. Schalke have a lot of fans. It'll be very loud in the stadium on Friday night, especially under the lights. We'll prepare as well as we can to go into the game as confidently as possible. Schalke definitely have quality. We've played them twice this season and we know the second game especially was closely fought. We know they can affect us. We have to be wary and be prepared and show on the pitch that we deserve to win the game."

…the lead at the top: "All we can do is take care of what we can control and take care of the games in front of us. Every game's a tough game and you need to give it everything every week because if you don't, you'll quickly fall down the table. We'll see where it takes us at the end of the season."

…his favourite position: "The way we play suits me a lot. I'm comfortable on both sides. Me, Fabian and Peter have worked really hard on my positioning and the tactics on both sides of the pitch. Credit to them for the work they've done with me. Wherever I'm called upon during a game, whether it's left or right, it doesn't make much difference to me."

…the support of the fans: "Football is all about the fans. I'm a football fan myself and I know how it feels to travel and follow your team. For us as players it's important to know that and to take that into account. When we perform, we perform for them. Fans just want us as players to give everything and show that we care."

Photos: FC St. Pauli/Witters