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Gladbach fire head coach Andre Schubert

December 21, 2016

Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach have parted ways with head coach Andre Schubert. The move comes the day after Gladbach were defeated at home by fellow strugglers Wolfsburg.

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Borussia Dortmund - Borussia Mönchengladbach
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Revierfoto

Rumors circulated that Schubert's job was in danger for several weeks as his Foals continued to underperform in the Bundesliga. Tuesday's 2-1 defeat to Wolfsburg appears to have sealed his fate. The result saw Wolfsburg leapfrog Gladbach in the standings, moving up to 13th place and dropping the Foals into 14th.  

In a statement posted on Mönchengladbach's website on Wednesday, the club made the announcement official.

"Over the past few days we have conducted a lot of discussions and analyzed our sporting development and come to the conclusion along with Andre, that it would be better for both sides for us to end our collaboration," sporting director Max Eberl said in the statement.

At first an interim solution

Schubert spent just over a year as head coach of Mönchengladbach, having taken over on an interim basis from Lucien Favre, who threw in the towel after going winless in the club's first five Bundesliga games to start last season. The board long appeared reluctant to give him the job on a more permanent basis, but after he won his first six league games in charge, they were left with little choice but to remove the "interim" from his title, rewarding him with a contract that ran through the end of this season.

"Andre helped us a great deal last season when he took the team from last place to a fourth-place finish and through the playoffs at the start of this season, led us into the Champions League," Eberl said.

Getting the Foals into the group stage of Europe's most prestigious club competition saw Gladbach reward Schubert this past September with a two-year contract extension. 

However, Eberl noted that since then, "for different reasons our development has stagnated... we thank Andre for his work with us and wish him ever success in his future endeavors."

For his part, Schubert thanked the club for "a great time with great people."

Successor to be named in due course

A replacement has not yet been appointed, but the club said that an announcement would be made at the appropriate time.

Schubert is the seventh Bundesliga coach to be fired so far this season following Dirk Schuster (Augsburg), Norbert Meier (Darmstadt), Viktor Skripnik (Bremen), Bruno Labbadia (Hamburg), Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg) and Markus Kauczinski (Ingolstadt).