Knuckle down and pick up as many points as possible

“Going into the international break after a defeat isn’t a nice situation to be in, especially when you’ve been picking up points in the games prior. In the end we just didn’t do enough,” said Guido Burgstaller after the game. At first, all seemed to be going to plan in the Commerzbank-Arena. Schalke battled well for an hour against Frankfurt, currently the most in-form team in the league, and could have taken the lead. “We had the chance to go ahead. We didn’t take it, and then we conceded immediately afterwards,” added Caligiuri, focussing on the two situations that shaped the game.

Embolo wanted a goal, not a penalty

“The 60th minute could have gone completely differently. I’m sure that we wouldn’t have lost the game had we gone in front. If Breel had gone down, we could have perhaps got a penalty,” said Christian Heidel. If the Swiss international had hit the floor, the referee could have been more likely to award Schalke a penalty. “Breel was playing fair, he went on and wanted to score the goal,” added Domenico Tedesco. However, Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp stopped him from doing that.

Less than a minute later, Eintracht scored to go in front. “When Eintracht win the ball back, they look to go forward straightaway. We wanted to prevent that happening. When you’ve got Sebastien Haller, Luka Jovic and Ante Rebic attacking you, it’s really difficult to defend against,” said Daniel Caligiuri. The defender is annoyed that Schalke then conceded a second and a third goal: “We’ve just got to be more intelligent.”

Tedesco: The fans are just as disappointed as we are

Schalke are currently only 14th in the league after just ten points from 11 games. “We’ve got to knuckle down and pick up as many points as possible until the winter break,” said Guido Burgstaller. It’s not about playing attractive football – the results are the only things that matter.”

“We’ve got ten points. We are where we are. It’s a difficult situation for us at the moment, we’re aware of that, especially when you don’t pick up any points from your first five games. Because of this, a defeat in Frankfurt on matchday 11 feels even worse,” said Christian Heidel.

Heidel can also understand that the away fans were unhappy following the final whistle in Frankfurt: “I can completely understand that the fans are disappointed. I needed a few minutes after the game to process the result.” Domenico Tedesco was of a similar opinion: “I can understand that the fans aren’t happy with the 0-3 defeat and that they’re criticising us. They’re behind us week after week and they’re obviously just as disappointed as we are.”