Bayern Munich vs Schalke 04 preview - Schalke boosted by Bayern form

Posted Monday, February 02, 2015 by PA

Schalke head to Bayern Munich on Tuesday night buoyed not only by their own 1-0 win over Hannover on Saturday, but also Bayern's unexpected 4-1 defeat at Wolfsburg on Friday night.

No longer are the Bavarians unbeatable and there could hardly be a better time to head to the Allianz Arena with Bayern licking their wounds.

"Even Bayern can lose two games in a row," said Schalke's Marco Hoger on his club's official website.

"We've not looked very good in Munich in recent years and we want to change that on Tuesday."

Fabian Giefer, who kept a clean sheet on his debut in the Schalke goal, says the weekend's results will not have any bearing on Tuesday night, however.

"We all know it's going to be an extremely difficult game," he said. "We've got to be serious and focus on this game.

"Our aim is to play well in Munich and then we'll see after 90 minutes what we get for it."

The Royal Blues will be without striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who is suspended following his red card at the weekend.

That means one change will have to be made to the Schalke starting XI, but several more can be expected to be made to the Bayern team.

Franck Ribery and Rafinha are out injured still, but it would be surprising to see Mario Gotze on the bench again on Tuesday night as Pep Guardiola's men look to bounce back from their heaviest defeat in nearly five years.

"Everybody knows that we must improve considerably against Schalke," said defender Jerome Boateng.

"Maybe it's actually a good thing that this happens to us now to wake us up. We need to put things right."