Howedes: Schalke has been embarrassing

Schalke defender Benedikt Howedes has admitted that the Gelsenkirchen side has embarrassed itself in the past few weeks.

The Bundesliga outfit was hammered 6-1 by Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie before suffering a 5-1 defeat against Bayern Munich at the weekend.

Consequently, Howedes has acknowledged that the team's performances of late have been well below par, admitting that Schalke was particularly poor at the Allianz Arena.

"It was not worthy of discussion, particularly the way we played in the first half [against Bayern], which was extremely embarrassing. That ruined the whole game for us and there can be no excuses," Howedes told the official Bundesliga website.

"We were tactically like a schoolboy team. It was really poor. We didn't get into the tackles and also committed some shocking individual mistakes. It was another bitter lesson for us. At the same time, you've got to remember that Real and Bayern are not the teams we have to measure ourselves up to, even if that cannot explain the margin of these defeats."

Schalke will be looking to get back on track on Saturday when it hosts Hoffenheim.