Stevens worried about defence

Schalke coach Huub Stevens is relieved his side will play their next game at home but has warned they must stop leaking goals.

Stevens’ men have dropped to fourth in the Bundesliga with three defeats and a draw in their past five games, conceding 10 goals along the way ahead of Saturday’s match against Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Those three defeats have all come away from home and Stevens cannot wait to get back to Schalke’s Veltins-Arena, where his team have not lost in five Bundesliga matches.

“Fortunately we don’t have an away match on Saturday,” Stevens said.

“We play at home but clearly we’ll give some thoughts to the recent results.”

Since taking all three points away to bitter rivals Borussia Dortmund, Schalke have been smashed on the road, conceding eight goals in three defeats.

That includes a 3-1 loss away to Hamburg on Tuesday and Stevens has conceded not much is going right for his side at the moment.

“We couldn’t win our last three away matches and of course we are not happy with that,” the 59-year-old Dutchman said.

“I don’t know if we need to call this a crisis but we do think about it, it would be bad if we didn’t.

“We concede too many goals and we don’t score enough.

“It’s as simple as that.

“So we need to think about the reasons.”