Wagner sat on the podium with his arms folded. Asked why he had gone straight to the dressing room after the final whistle following the 2-1 result, he replied: "I needed to go to the toilet. That's one thing. And it would be important for you to focus on the players after the match, not on me."
Even after his first win in his fifth match as coach of the Lower Saxony side, Wagner insisted nothing had changed for him. His team now sit 12th with eleven points from ten games. "It made no difference to me before, and it makes no difference to me now. I try to stay focused on the substance and develop the team."
Wagner had lost three of his five matches, and his side had also been knocked out of the DFB Cup. He continued: "Ultimately, it doesn't matter how I feel. I'll just say that I never want to point to all our injured players or make excuses. I also want to be a role model for the lads. I'm 38. I'm not that old, but I am older than one or two of the players. I want to stand there, too, when things get unsettled. That's simply important for people in leadership positions. What the lads have noticed from day one is that I'm not afraid of anything, absolutely nothing."
Describing the first half against bottom-of-the-table Dresden as the worst of the entire season, "as I saw it", one journalist drew this response from Wagner: "I don't want to discredit your view, but I don't see it that way. You can see it however you like, I noticed that recently, too. The first ten minutes of the first half were decent in many respects."
Sandro Wagner's press conference appearance: "I'll say as many sentences as I want"
When another reporter asked Wagner for "two or three sentences" on whether he felt he and his team were on the right track, the coach replied: "I'll say as many sentences as I want. I have to say: as a coach, you shouldn't always judge a match solely by the result."
Wagner had already told Sky that he considered both the 1-1 draw against St. Pauli and the 2-0 cup defeat to Kaiserslautern better performances by his team than Sunday's win. "I wasn't so satisfied with the substance of our performance today in many respects. I really try to work only on that, and that's what I assess." Football is a results-driven sport, so "everyone now says: Cool! But it wasn't cool," Wagner added.
For striker Benjamin Källman, who remained without a goal but set up Husseyn Chakroun's goal for 1-1, Wagner had praise: "All that Instagram nonsense and everyone who weighs in: none of it matters. I assess him. And I tell him: I don't give a shit about goals. That comes on top. It's the end product. But close down well, hold the ball up well, set up goals: that's much more important."
Getty ImagesHannover 96 sack coach and sporting managing director in quick succession
Hannover missed out on promotion only on the final day last year and began the current season with corresponding ambitions, but have struggled for weeks. After a disappointing start, the second-division club parted ways with coach Christian Titz.
On Saturday, sporting managing director Jonas Boldt, who had brought in Wagner, also left the club. His time with the Lower Saxony side ended after just five months.
Boldt, 44, had only taken over from Jörg Schmadtke at the end of May. His contract with Hannover was originally valid for three years.