Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg both made inroads into Bayern Munich's advantage at the top of the Bundesliga with wins on Saturday.
Dortmund moved to within five points of the Bavarians thanks to a 3-1 win at Werder Bremen, with Marco Reus - twice - and Henrikh Mkhitaryan on target for Thomas Tuchel's men.
Anthony Ujah scored a consolation for the northern side, who had won their previous two games.
Wolfsburg beat Bayer Leverkusen in Saturday evening's big match to move above Schalke, who were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Ingolstadt, and into third position.
Nicklas Bendtner and Julian Draxler scored for the Wolves, but the Werkself had plenty to complain about in their 2-1 defeat, with Javier Hernandez netting their consolation.
With Bayern held to a 1-1 draw by Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday night, the battle for the Bundesliga title was at least made a little more interesting with the chasers making some much needed ground.
Borussia Monchengladbach sent a reminder to all three sides not to forget about them with a 4-1 win at Hertha Berlin.
Caretaker-coach Andre Schubert celebrated the best ever start to life as Gladbach's coach with a sixth straight win.
Oscar Wendt and Raffael set the Foals on their way to victory before Granit Xhaka added a third.
Alexander Baumjohann pulled one back from the penalty spot but Havard Nordtveit rounded off the win for Gladbach, who will be looking for a similar result when they face Juventus in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, Augsburg were deprived of a second win of the season as they were held to a 3-3 draw by Mainz, Yoshinori Muto with a hat-trick including a last-minute equaliser.
Cologne and Hoffenheim also shared the spoils in a goalless draw at the Mungersdorferstadion.