Heimniederlage der Königsblauen

By: Porter | March 22nd, 2009

Schalke’s poor record in the second half of the season continued today with a 2-1 loss against HSV in Gelsenkirchen. It was the club’s successive loss since the elimination of Andreas Müller and with the club now eighth in the table the club is looking very much like a leadership ship.

Their were few changes to Fred Rutten’s defensive minded lineup and as shown in previous matches, Schalke lacked the vision to attack and relied mostly on the approach of trying to resist the oppositions scoring. The early stages of the match was dominated by HSV possession however three minutes before the half hour Schalke narrowly missed taking the lead after Jefferson Farfán and Kevin Kurányi played a smooth one-two and sent the ball to Heiko Westermann whose effort from eight metres out was saved. That attempt aside, HSV returned to show greater attacking vision and confidence.

After the break Fred Rutten’s side seemed to wake-up, albeit somewhat groggy, from a long winters nap and started to press for the lead. Attempts were mostly low probability efforts but still it showed an intention to score, which is more that can be said of the first forty-five minutes. With twenty minutes to go Manuel Neuer made a crucial error trying to head the ball out to Benedikt Höwedes but instead provided the ball to HSV’s Paolo Guerrero for an easy goal. Now up by one HSV took complete command of the match via a counter assault led by Marcell Jansen who cross to Guerrero was closed out from three metres. Down by two and watching the season fall apart, Fred Rutten brought in Christian Pander for Levan Kobiashvili but kept Gerald Asamoah on the bench, when a double substitution for a great attacking pulse was without question needed. With ten minutes remaining Schalke hopes were lifted as a long ball found Kevin Kurányi, who then crossed to Jefferson Farfán for a close range volley in. Down by one, Schalke could do little more to find the needed goal and lost 2-1.

Photo Credit: Bundesliga