late goals sink Schalke for another loss
By: Porter | November 30th, 2008
Late goals by Jan Šimák and Mario Gómez propelled Stuttgart to a 2-0 victory over Schalke. Coupled with this weeks miserable 2-0 loss in the UEFA Cup to Manchester City and only two victories in their last five Bundesliga matches, Schalke are on the ropes and Fred Rutten needs to right the course or the fall down the table will be too much to make up after the long winter break. While the club is quick to add that they stand behind the coaching staff, I cannot imagine that it’ll take much more before Andreas Müller and Fred Rutten will be shown the door.
Returning the match, Schalke came out with notable intent and at fifteen minutes, after Kevin Kurányi drew a foul from Arthur Boka in the area, Jefferson Farfán stepped up the spot. However the day wasn’t his and Jens Lehmann dove in the right direction and denied his attempt. At that stage, VfB seemed to straighten their backs up and slowly became more confident. Farfán had another attempt go wide just before the half hour mark but by then the momentum had shifted and VfB’s fighting spirit was apparent as they either beat Schalke to loose balls or out-worked them in effort. After the break, the attacking aspect of the match was owned by VfB and with eleven minutes left Czech international Jan Šimák capitalized on a defensive marking error, collected a Khalid Boulahrouz pass and coming in on Manuel Neuer he lobbed the ball over the Schalke ‘keeper. Again, like the penalty miss, Schalke seemed shaken and only four minutes later Mario Gómez added the second goal to seal the match off and hand them a 2-0 loss.
Matches on Sunday typically don’t have the same length of press interviews or public commentary from management. Following the last two losses I’m expecting this situation to heat up considerably as the club is now faced with a daunting task to get back in the race for hardware.
Category: Schalke Team News
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