Bremen, Bundesliga champions as recently as 2004 and one of Germany's most fabled clubs, have only been relegated once in 1980.

But they are now in real trouble on 17 points from 19 games after an own goal from Davy Klaassen was followed by strikes from Christoph Baumgartner and Sargis Adamyan at the Weser Stadium on Sunday.

"We were the better team for 60 minutes, but made the wrong decisions in the final third," said Bremen coach Florian Kohfeldt, who has been given the board's backing to continue in the role.

"Today was a setback. We apologise to all of the fans. We knew that there would be setbacks. We need to analyse where we went wrong."

It could have been worse for Bremen had bottom side Fortuna Dusseldorf won at Bayer Leverkusen, but instead they lost 3-0 following Kai Havertz's first-half header, a Lars Bender goal on 79 minutes and a late Lucas Alario penalty.

Leverkusen, who dominated but almost let Dusseldorf back in at 1-0, went above Schalke into fifth and are two points behind Borussia Dortmund in the fourth and final Champions League berth.

Dusseldorf have 15 points with Paderborn, 2-0 winners at Freiburg on Saturday, above them on goal difference in the other automatic relegation place. Paderborn's upturn in form is haunting Bremen fans.

In Saturday's action, leaders RB Leipzig lost 2-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich cut the gap at the top to a point with a 5-0 home thrashing of Schalke.

Australian Associated Press