Five wins in a row but Schalke daren’t dream yet

The sporting director wasn’t bothered by the fact that the game wasn’t the prettiest: “We’re not heading home thinking it was the perfect performance but, once again, we hardly let the opposition have a sniff and the win wasn’t an undeserved one.”

Christian Heidel: Pounced at the right moment

The only goal of the game was a fortuitous one. “I just wanted to drill the ball low and hard into the area,” reflected Breel Embolo on the winner. “Thankfully, Robin Knoche turned it into his own goal for us.” Heidel thinks the Royal Blues forced the goal through their pressure. “The team were smart and pounced at the right moment,” said the sporting director.

Schalke had Ralf Fährmann for the fact that they weren’t behind in the game. As he’d done before, the goalkeeper saved Paul Verhaegh’s penalty. “We intensively studied the video footage before the game. I was happy to save the penalty,” said the 29-year-old. “You could say I had a pretty good idea of where he was going to go.”

Franco di Santo: We’ve not achieved anything yet

Despite the three points, the Royal Blues are not getting over excited yet. “We’ve not achieved anything at all yet,” stressed Franco di Santo. “We’re not looking ahead or behind us in the table. It’s important that we keep trying every week to put in the best performance possible. You can only do it if you take each game as it come and don’t think about what could be the case in a few weeks time.”

Heidel has a similar view. “We have to keep working hard,” demanded the sporting director. Regarding the table, he said: “We’ve worked hard for every single one of our 49 points so far. It’s great that we’ve got so many points on the board already. I think we’re in a good place.”