It was a dire night for Tayfun Korkut and his Bayer Leverkusen side as Schalke 04 inflicted a heavy defeat to leave them looking nervously behind their backs.

Julian Brandt could have given Leverkusen the lead in the opening seconds, but Schalke led 3-0 after just 20 minutes, with goals from Guido Burgstaller, Benedikt Höwedes and Alessandro Schöpf.

Burgstaller scored again early in the second half, and despite a Stefan Kießling consolation Schalke picked up just their third Bundesliga away win of the season. Leverkusen are four points ahead of the relegation play-off spot, but with all the teams below them to play over the rest of the weekend.

Mass changes for Leverkusen

Despite desperately disappointing seasons there was still plenty at stake for both sides, with neither Europe nor relegation still completely out of the question.

With only one win in his seven games in charge, Korkut made five changes to the team that were beaten by SC Freiburg last weekend. Aleksander Dragovic, Wendell, Julian Baumgartlinger, Kai Havertz and Javier Hernández made way for Tin Jedvaj, Benjamin Henrichs, Charles Aránguiz, Karim Bellarabi and Kießling.

Sitting a place and two points ahead of Leverkusen in eleventh before the match, Schalke made two changes from last week’s draw with RB Leipzig. Max Mayer and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar made away for Schöpf and Leon Goretzka.

Schalke wreak havoc on shambolic Leverkusen

Leverkusen had got off to a great start and could have been ahead in the first minute. Bellarabi set up his follow winger Julian Brandt after a Nabil Bentaleb mistake, but Ralf Fährmann made the save to deny him.

They remained on the attack, but couldn’t make an early breakthrough, and Schalke then scored with their first move forward. Bentaleb found Goretzka with a superb pass, he skipped over a challenge from Ömer Toprak (who injured himself in the process and was replaced soon after by Jonathan Tah) and, beating Bernd Leno with his lay-off, set up Burgstaller for an easy tap in.

They doubled their lead with a rare set-piece goal four minutes later. Schöpf found Höwedes, who was left with a free header by the nearest Leverkusen man Brandt. He scored for Schalke for the first time since October 2015.

Despite looking good going forward Leverkusen were in pieces at the back. Goretzka had two pops at getting a third, both blocked by Leno, however his defence couldn’t get it clear and Schöpf then pounced on the loose ball. He did make it three, still inside the first twenty minutes.

Fortunately for Leverkusen it didn’t get any worse before the break. Jedvaj came close to pulling one back, seeing his shot sent away from goal by Fährmann, but Schalke remained on top, although chances for Goretzka and Burgstaller didn’t lead to further goals.

Kießling goal too little, too late

Like in the first half Leverkusen looked to score immediately, with Bellarabi shooting wide from across goal less than ten seconds in to the second period of the game.

They couldn’t keep it up and were soon 4-0 down. A promising Goretzka break was halted by Kevin Kampl, leading to a free-kick. Schöpf looked to have sent it wide but Burgstaller met it at the far post, hammering in his volley past Leno.

Leverkusen looked beat but they gave themselves the smallest of consolations with twenty minutes remaining. Brandt’s diagonal ball found Bellarabi, who crossed in for Kießling to head in from low down. It was just his second goal of the season, the first coming in the reverse fixture in December.

Brandt had had an otherwise poor evening and his shot well over the bar summed up his and Leverkusen’s evening. That was about all they could muster in the closing stages, and Schalke secured a win that moves them closer to Europe and well away from relegation danger. The same cannot be said of Leverkusen, who on this form could fall into serious trouble.

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