After the disastrous start to the new football year, Werder Bremen's Ole Werner made an urgent appeal to his players and the entire environment.

“It is clear that something like this must not happen to us again.

Everyone has to give 100 percent every day.

If we don't do that, it will look like today, then we will have problems," said Werner on Sky after the 1: 7 (1: 5) at 1. FC Köln.

The list of deficiencies of his team in this game is so long that he could not even list them in the TV interview, Werner explained: "We surrendered in the duel and hardly got a ball to the man up front.

All in all, a really disastrous performance from us.” His conclusion was: “Nothing, absolutely nothing worked.

You shouldn’t sugarcoat anything.”

Linton Maina (9th), Steffen Tigges (15th, 21st), Ellyes Skhiri (30th, 54th) and Denis Huseinbasic (36th) scored for Cologne.

There was also an own goal by Marco Friedl (76th), on the other side only Bremen's World Cup driver Niclas Füllkrug (38th) was successful.

For Werder it was the third defeat in a row - with a goal difference of 3:15.

Bremen does not want to bring any new players

"We invited Cologne to score goals.

We lost every decisive duel.

That's one of the many points that were catastrophic, "Werner now said: "It's important that we learn the lessons from the game." This includes taking a stand as a coach and carrying out analyses, but also: "That maybe also one or the other player has an explanation.

For us to fall apart like this is something that must not happen.”

It is important that “we understand that we are climbers”.

It only works with full commitment and the willingness to invest everything: "Today we weren't even at 98 percent, but at eight or nine.

maximum.

That's not enough to be competitive."

Clemens Fritz saw it similarly.

The head of professional football at Bremen called the performance "a cheek", own goal scorer Friedl said: "We missed everything that could be missed." His team "did everything wrong".

Werder's Leonardo Bittencourt felt "presented", the people of Cologne "knew from A to Z what we were doing".

Despite the 7-1 draw, Bremen does not want to sign any reinforcements for the second half of the Bundesliga season in January.

“One is wanting, the other is being able.

I've said more than once that we can't do anything more economically," said sports director Frank Baumann on Sunday at the TV station Bild.

"I'm convinced that we can stay in the league with this squad.

It's not for nothing that we have 21 points after 16 games.

That's a decent result that we have to confirm in the second half of the season."

Bremen do not want to sell their top scorer and national player Niclas Füllkrug until after this season at the earliest.

The 29-year-old, whose contract was only extended until mid-2025 in the summer, scored his eleventh goal of the season in Cologne.

"Niclas is a very important player for us.

I'm very optimistic that he will stay with us for the rest of the season," said Baumann.

“We have absolutely no interest in giving up Niclas this winter.

And we don't have any financial pressure to sell it either.

We need Niclas to be able to achieve our goal of staying up in the league.”

The 1: 7 in Cologne described Werder's sports director a day later as "cheeky" and "debacle".

"What was I thinking yesterday at 6:50 p.m.?

What a crap!

Please excuse the choice of words.

We distributed gifts, belated Christmas gifts," said Baumann.

"Due to the English week we have little time to reflect on what made us strong at the beginning of the season.

But we absolutely have to show that again on Wednesday evening against Union Berlin.”