Benedikt Howedes has admitted that Schalke 04 "didn't show enough guts" in their 3-0 loss to Borussia Dortmund at Signal Iduna Park.
Goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marco Reus secured the points for Dortmund in the second Ruhr derby of the year, and Howedes was keen to apologise to the travelling Schalke supporters, who booed off their plays at the end of the game.
"We knew how much quality Dortmund have in attack and thought we'd be able to close down the space and stop them playing in the middle of the pitch by playing with two holding midfielders. That didn't work at all in the first half. We were really lucky not to have gone behind," the German defender told reporters.
"After the break we were better organised and got into the game better and didn't allow them as many clear-cut chances as we did in the first half, but we deserved to lose. We had a really bad day today and I'm sorry for the fans who supported us superbly for 90 minutes. We didn't show enough guts today."
Schalke slipped to fifth in the table courtesy of their seventh away loss of the season.
Callum Mulvihill
