Different Shades of German Rivalry January does not look like its going to be a good month for Schalke. Despite the initial good news that Klaas-Jan Huntelaar had signed a contract extension, sober reality slowly began to come to the fore, to the point were the club is now halfway through the month with Jens Keller, an little-experienced interim coach, having been left in charge of a demoralized, injury-riddled squad, upon the departure of Huub Stevens. Oh, and Lewis Holtby is leaving. In truth, Holtby's proposed move from Schalke to Tottenham should come as little surprise to fans in Germany's Bundesliga. The young man of English decent has always held a certain admiration for the English game that far exceeds the allure of simple fortunes that grasp the imagination of most, and was inevitably going to make the move across the channel at some point in his career. Yet the manner in which the prodigy has been allowed to leave the club with no more than a whimper from the boardroom, on the back of a precontract that will not earn the club a single euro, should ring like an alarm bell loud and clear to the Royal Blues faithful: how did such a bright talent get away for free? Lining up the club in front of its impeccable rival, Borussia Dortmund, it becomes rather apparent. This club is not only manager-less, it lacks any form of a long-term goal. Since Jörgen Klopp pulled up to the Westfalonstadion in May 2008, Schalke has gone through four fully appointed managers and two interim coaches. Four separate squads, four separate ethos and four separate player recruitment strategies all in the same time it took Dortmund to win two Bundesliga titles. The most obvious, and frustrating, aspect of the current situation for most fans is that this Dortmund-shaped shadow in which it currently dwells is entirely of its own doing. While Dortmund may have the successful coach and world-class players, the Gelsenkirchen club really should be matching its local rivals on the field as it seems to do in every other aspect of the club. Despite Dortmund's recent domestic success, the club's financial blossoming has only done enough to bring it within touching distance of the old mining club, with recent financial results suggesting that the champions generate revenue that is only about two-thirds that of Schalke's, with the Royal Blue's accounts almost twice as healthy as that of fellow top-half challengers, Stuttgart and Hamburg. Similarly, Schalke tends to trump its rivals in the sport of youth development. Based in a town built upon the exploits of mining all those years ago, it prides itself on its ability to dig out gems from the surrounding North-Rhine Westphalia area before anyone else. In the current first team, five players -- Lars Unnerstall, Holtby, Julian Draxler, Benedikt Höwedes and Joel Matip -- all came from the youth academy, with past youngsters such as Manuel Neuer moving on in the past for huge transfer fees. While Dortmund can lay claim to only three -- Mario Götze, Marcel Schmelzer and Kevin Grosskreutz -- assuming of course that we neglect Marco Reus, who was released from the club and developed by Rot Weiss Ahlen and Borussia Mönchengladbach. Of course, financial accounts and youth development do not win you league titles when the first team is in chaos, which is exactly where Schalke continually fall short. In the past three years Schalke has remained rather savvy in the transfer market in comparison to checkbook marauding clubs such as Wolfsburg or Hamburg, and can even point to a healthier total spent than Borussia Dortmund, yet the shining example ends when you compare how many players came and went in that time period. In the summer of 2010, the preseason before Klopp's team clinched its first Bundesliga title, Dortmund conducted eight transfers -- Schalke carried out an incredible 24. Then in the next season it had a further 22 players either coming or going, with an additional 12 the season after. Even the manner of the transfers between the two clubs could not paint a more contrasting picture. So far this month, Dortmund has allowed Ivan Perisic to leave for Wolfsburg, while obtaining Nuri Sahin, as well as extending the contracts of the integral first-team players Sven Bender, Neven Subotic and Marcel Schmelzer. In the transfer period before, it sold Shinji Kagawa and was able to bring in Reus. In the season before that, it sold the Sahin to Real Madrid, and brought in the young and incredibly talented Ilkay Gundogan. With each player sold, another comes in fully capable of maintaining an impeccable standard. In contrast, Schalke has signed the 27-year-old Raffael from Dynamo Kiev to aid the long-term injury of Ibrahim Affelay, while Michel Bastos of Lyon has been touted as a replacement if Holbty decides to leave this month: hardly two like-for-like replacements. While Dortmund and Bayern tie down their assets and build toward the future, Schalke seems destined to continue rummaging through the bargain basement for quick-fix solutions to reoccurring problems. On Friday, Keller, the interim coach, will lead this patched up team on to the field against Hannover 96 in only the 10th Bundesliga game of his career, as the team tries to kick off its Ruckrunde campaign with a win in front of the vocal Veltins-Arena faithful. Some 60,000 fans will descend on the stadium in desperate need of a win, a march back up the table, and most importantly, some long-term sustainable success. Whether the club is ready to buck up and start closing ground on its local rivals, may well come down to who is standing on that touchline once a replacement for Keller is finally found. Follow Stefan Bienkowski on Twitter.