After the bitter 4-0 defeat in Leverkusen, no manager at FC Schalke 04 wanted to step in front of the microphones. However, the club has since released a statement. What’s next for the counted coach Frank Kramer?
The air for Frank Kramer at FC Schalke 04 is getting thinner and thinner. On Saturday afternoon, Bayer coach Xabi Alonso made his debut with the Royal Blues suffering a clear 4-0 loss. After the game, “Kramer raus” was clearly audible from the away block throughout the BayArena.
“My job is to analyze and find solutions with the players so that we can do better next week. Everything else is not my concern,” said Kramer after the defeat, and Schalke keeper Alexander Schwolow even said: “I did not heard. We’ll all stay together. Together we’ll get out of this.”
However, it is questionable whether Kramer really still has many chances to pull the cart out of the dirt with the promoted team. After sports director Rouven Schröder and his colleagues did not want to comment immediately after the bankruptcy against Leverkusen, the club issued a statement on Saturday evening.
“Naivety on the defensive” at FC Schalke 04?
“Our team’s performance today really disappointed us,” said the Royal Blues. “The coaching staff around Frank Kramer, the team, we are all challenged to show an improved performance in all respects against Hoffenheim,” it said.
Kramer himself explained after the game: “Today we were the clearly inferior team. We couldn’t defend Bayer’s pace and didn’t implement what we had planned. It’s important to analyze that clearly and in the next game to do better.”
Defender Cedric Brunner meanwhile warned of “naivety on the defensive”, striker Simon Terodde said his team “begged for a goal up until half-time and that mustn’t happen to us”.
FC Schalke 04 have to start the 10th Bundesliga matchday at TSG Hoffenheim on Friday (8:30 p.m.). There are many indications that this game will be the endgame for Kramer.