Berlin (AFP) – Relegation-threatened Arminia Bielefeld have fired head coach Uwe Neuhaus and his assistant and are now poised to name a successor, the Bundesliga club said on Monday.

Neuhaus led the club to promotion last season but Bielefeld’s sporting director Samir Arabi said the decision was made to boost their survival chances.

The club are third-bottom after taking one point from their past five Bundesliga games, an impressive 3-3 draw at Bayern Munich amid a series of defeats.

“We feel the team has the quality to achieve our goal but given the current situation we decided we had to act now,” Arabi said.

Bielefeld still have 12 matches to play in the Bundesliga campaign, with the bottom two automatically relegated and the third-bottom side facing a play-off against a second-tier outfit.

They sit behind 15th-placed Hertha Berlin on goal difference, but with a game in hand.