Mario Gomez has accepted his share of the responsibility for Wolfsburg’s poor first half of the season and has praised Julian Draxler for his attitude, despite him wanting to leave the Bundesliga club.

Gomez arrived at Wolfsburg in the summer from Fiorentina having spent last season on loan at Besiktas.

He ended the season as the Turkish league’s top scorer and the expectations were high for the former Stuttgart and Bayern Munich striker, but it was not until the eighth game of the season that he opened his account.

“If we had won the first five games of the season, then we would be talking about different things now, but I wasted some good chances then, which is why a large share of the blame for our performances is also mine,” Gomez told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

“But believe me, I go to training every day in a positive mood and am confident that we will turn the corner.”

Draxler will not be one of his team-mates from this month with the Germany international moving to Paris SG, six months after he first expressed his desire to leave.

Gomez admits holding on to Draxler in the summer was one of the conditions he set before signing for the Wolves and he says his national team colleague has been an example of professionalism throughout the first half of the season in which he continued to crave for a move away.

“Julian was never in a bad mood – he always gave everything, at all times,” Gomez said. “He wanted to move to a bigger club and Wolfsburg respected that.”

Gomez ended 2016 with four goals in 15 games for a Wolfsburg side who head into the new year in 13th place, just three points above the bottom three and 11 behind the top six.

They risk missing out on Europe for a second season running having reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League last term.