Bochum have sacked coach Marcel Koller a day after a 3-2 loss to Mainz that sparked fan protests at the club. Assistant coaches Frank Heinemann and Dariusz Wosz will step in as temporary replacements for Koller, who is the third Bundesliga coach to lose his job only six games into the new season.

Yesterday's defeat, in which Bochum twice threw away the lead, left them with only four points from six games and just one place off the foot of the table. Koller, the Bundesliga's second longest-serving coach behind Thomas Schaaf, had just begun his fifth season in charge of Bochum and had one year remaining on his contract. He helped the club to promotion in his first season and then maintained their position in Bundesliga.

"We owe Marcel Koller a debt of gratitude," said Bochum technical director Thomas Ernst in a statement from the club. "Under him, we have been in the top flight for four seasons and we have not managed that since 1993. We wish him well for the future."

News of Koller's firing comes on the same day the Swiss coach insisted he would not walk away from the club.

"I have known this situation since I have been here,'' he said. "It is not comfortable, but we have always managed in the last two years to keep the club in the Bundesliga. But I don't know what the people responsible will decide in the end.

"If they don't have faith in me any more, then there is nothing more I can do as a coach. This was a bitter defeat for us."

Bochum next face Schalke in the DFB-Pokal on Tuesday. Oddly enough, Mainz are one of the two other clubs to have sacked coaches this season, with Jorn Andersen losing his job, while Hannover sacked Dieter Hecking.