Pressue mounts as Schalke are defeat again

Under-fire Schalke coach Fred Rutten admits these are "hard times" for the club after they lost their third Bundesliga game in four by going down 2-0 to Stuttgart.

The pre-season title contenders conceded two late goals to Jan Simak and Mario Gomez as the Royal Blues slipped to ninth in the table, 11 points off top spot. The away fans called for the head of general manager Andreas Muller during the game, and Rutten conceded his team are finding things tough.

"These are already hard times at Schalke and they are only going to get harder this way," he said. "It really hurts when you lost a game like this one. We have got to deal with it, but this defeat hits us really, really hard."

Schalke chairman Clemens Tonnies confirmed he would sit down with Rutten and Muller during the winter break in a bid to sort out what is going wrong.

"We will keep our cool and not put the team, coach and manager under any further pressure," he told the Neue Ruhr newspaper. "During the winter break, we will sit down and take it from there."

For Stuttgart, though, the win was a victory for new coach Markus Babbel in his first league game in charge and moved the team up to 10th, two points behind Schalke.

But the former Germany defender admitted it was a far from convincing win.

"We were insecure," he said. "It got a bit better in the second half and we took our chances, but (goalkeeper) Jens (Lehmann) kept us alive with his experience."

Lehmann saved a penalty from Jefferson Farfan in the 16th minute to deny his old club a lead which they would probably have deserved in the first 45 minutes.

"It is somewhat ironic that I save a penalty against my ex-club when they are in such a difficult situation," said the stopper.