Schalke were ‘giants’ in Germany, but Shkodran Mustafi deal showed how ‘desperate’ they have become as they face up to relegation in remarkable season which has seen FIVE managers in charge

Sacked this season: Three managers, one squad manager, one head of performance and one head of sports and communications.

No, this is not a pilot for a particularly sensational European series of The Apprentice; this is something that’s going on at a real life football club.

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Not just any club, ‘the original giants of German football’ – as European football expert for talkSPORT Andy Brassell puts it.

Schalke are breaking new ground this season but for all the wrong reasons. They set a Bundesliga record of having the most coaches in one season (five) following the dismissal of Christian Gross at the end of February. He was in the position for 64 days.

Expectations at the Veltins-Arena may not be high like they are at Bayern Munich but Brassell tells talkSPORT.com fans demand players to have the ‘balls’ to play for Schalke and express themselves on the pitch.

“It doesn’t just take talent to play for Schalke but mentality and the fans demand that mentality. If players aren’t meeting that expectation, the fans will let them know,” Brassell adds.

Schalke is based in Germany’s Ruhr area, where unemployment is high, and “most of their fans live on the breadline,” president of the Schalke FanClub UK Gregg Devine tells talkSPORT.com.

Despite all these hardships in everyday life, the Schalke faithful are a loyal bunch and during normal times they have no issue getting over 60,000 fans into their ground.

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However, there’s been a poor return for their loyal support this season. Just one league win sees Schalke rooted at the bottom of the German top flight and nine points adrift of a relegation play-off spot.

The results are bad and unsavoury incidents involving individual players – Nabil Bentaleb among them – has hardly helped.

Former sporting director Jochen Schneider (more on him later), publicly stated Bentaleb would never play for Schalke again after he was suspended for disciplinary issues. But such is the desperation of things, the club were forced to cave and the former Tottenham midfielder was playing again a month later.

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Bentaleb isn’t the only example. There were reports of a player revolt led by their January arrivals from Arsenal, Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac, something the club denies but Mustafi didn’t when it was put to him by the media.

Davies believes the personnel in the team are a big problem as they consist of ‘a number of mercenaries’, who are ‘stealing a living.’

“There are certain elements of our squad that are paid good money, who will go and lose, get battered by Borussia Dortmund 4-0 and then post something on Instagram of them living the life of Riley,” Devine added.

“That does NOT go down well with Schalke fans.”

Schalke FanClub UK

What makes this crisis all the more astounding is the fact Schalke were playing in the Champions League only two seasons ago.

They were well-beaten by Manchester City but reaching the last-16 of Europe’s premier club competition suggested the future was bright.

But they’ve gone backwards – and fast.  Eight players in Schalke’s starting XI against City in the Gelsenkirchen leg are still on the club’s books so there’s still much quality within their squad.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the way an incident involving former chairman Clemens Tönnies was handled should have been seen as a sign of the disastrous days ahead. Tönnies was widely condemned for racist comments made about Africa in August 2019, however, he was only given a six-week suspension – something he signed off on personally. He didn’t leave the club for good until June 2020.

Their crippling financial issues also need to be mentioned too. They were understood to be €200million in the red BEFORE the COVID pandemic.

Devine points out how these financial woes would have been the making of the club being badly run in recent years previous. Schalke lost Leon Goretzka, Joel Matip and Kolasinac on free transfers while Ivan Rakitic left the club to join Sevilla for a paltry £2.25million.

“The disorganisation on all levels is so intense,” Brassell adds. “When Mustafi signed (from Arsenal) on transfer deadline day, it was a Monday. He flew over, had to do quarantine until the Friday so didn’t train at all.

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“He was straight out of quarantine and straight into the team and was at fault for one of the goals where they lost 3-0 to RB Leipzig. That is how desperate they are.”

Mistakes have clearly been allowed to happen for many years but with regards to this current crisis, the buck must stop with ‘fraud’ Schneider, according to Devine.

“He’s been involved in some really bad squad planning…” Devine says. “He seemed to only rely on players of coaches who have once played for Stuttgart, which is bizarre.

“Schneider had an easy decision at the end of last season with our former coach David Wagner. That was the time to sack him and bring in someone fresh. We don’t give ourselves the opportunity to be successful and then we make knee-jerk decisions.

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“The buck stops with Schneider and I think if he had done the right thing in sacking Wagner, yeah okay, we probably would’ve been lower mid-table or just above relegation but we wouldn’t be marooned at the bottom of the Bundesliga.”

What does the future hold for Schalke? Brassell and Devine both agree relegation is inevitable and there are probably more dark days ahead before the recovery can truly begin.

“Schalke will be used as an example of how NOT to run a football club,” Devine quips.

Sadly for Schalke fans, that’s perhaps the best thing they can offer to German football for the foreseeable.

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