Schalke 04 star Lewis Holtby has described Friday night's nine-goal thriller with Hannover as "a totally crazy match".

Die Knappen secured their first win in six games to go fifth in the Bundesliga, but the 22-year-old - who scored one and set up two - admitted that his team were poor defensively.

"The most important thing for me was for the team to pick up a win," Holtby told Bundesliga.com. "The fact that I had a good game personally was the icing on the cake.

"It was a totally crazy match. Overall it was a lot of fun, but the goals we conceded were poor and that's down to the team as a whole. We were compact at the back in the first half, but later on things got a bit more haphazard in defence.

"Fortunately we were always dangerous up front, though. After our slump [before the winter break] it was important to win a game like that - it was good for our confidence."

Schalke travel to face Augsburg next Saturday.