The Royal Blues were beaten 2-0 by Hoffenheim with star striker Raul again drawing a blank and out-of-sorts defender Christoph Metzelder removed at half time.

But Magath refused to see only the negatives and claimed his side had deserved more.

"Overall, I am happy with my team's performance," he said. "It was an improvement on the games against Hannover and Hamburg.

"Now, though, we need to get the right results as quickly as possible."

Hoffenheim moved to the top of the table with their third straight win of the season, but their coach Ralf Rangnick admitted luck had played its part.

"Our opening goal was a touch fortunate," he said. "Things then went a bit better for us in the second half, but we were lucky with the header from Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

"Tom Starke reacted sensationally."

Huntelaar almost brought Schalke level with a debut goal and the new recruit from AC Milan expressed his disappointment at not managing to turn Schalke's season around.

"I really wanted to win on my debut, but unfortunately it didn't work out," he said. "But we must not let our heads drop. We have got to look forwards positively.

"I could have made it 1-1 and if the ball had gone in, maybe we could have taken something away with us."

Schalke now face Olympique Lyon in their first Champions League of the season before hosting Borussia Dortmund in the first big Westphalian derby of the season next weekend.