MUNICH: Jurgen Klinsmann was on Monday sacked as head coach of Bayern Munich following a series of poor results, the defending Bundesliga champions announced.

The 44-year-old only took charge in July 2008, but recent poor results have seen Bayern crash out of the Champions League after a 4-0 hammering at Barcelona while Saturday's 1-0 defeat by Schalke leaves them third in the German league.

"Of course, I am very disappointed at the moment," said Klinsmann in a statement on the Bayern website.

"Nevertheless, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Bayern Munich, the fans, the trainers, the players and my colleagues for an exciting time.

"We have laid the foundations for the future. I still believe that the team can be German champions this season."

Former Bayern trainer Jupp Heynckes will take over as head coach for the remaining five league games with Hermann Gerland as his assistant.

Klinsmann, who along with assistant coaches Martin Vasquez and Nick Theslof, will leave with immediate effect, was told of the decision in a meeting with Bayern team manager Uli Hoeness and chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on Monday.

"We did not come to this decision lightly," Rummenigge said in a statement.

"But the results of the past weeks, the way in which they came about and above all, the situation we find ourselves in five games before the end of the season forced us to act out of a sense of responsibility to the club.

"In Jupp Heynckes and Hermann Gerland, we have two experienced coaches who will take over the running of the team until the end of the season."

Having guided Germany to third at the 2006 World Cup, Klinsmann's Bayern contract had been until June 30, 2010, but he only lasted ten months in his first role in charge of a domestic team and lost seven of his 29 league games.

The first signs of trouble came last September when Werder Bremen embarrassed Bayern 5-2 in front of their own fans at Munich's Allianz Arena in the Bundesliga.

And having been knocked out of the German Cup 4-2 by Bavarian neighbours Leverkusen in March, dreams of repeating last season's domestic League, Cup and League Cup treble quickly faded.

The alarm bells rang in earnest when Bayern were hammered 5-1 at Wolfsburg on April 4 in the Bundesliga before being routed 4-0 by Barcelona at the Nou Camp four days later in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.

And Saturday's 1-0 home defeat to Schalke was the final straw as Rummenigge refused to speak to reporters when leaving the stadium.

Klinsmann's replacement Heynckes already has a pedigree at Bayern having won two successive Bundesliga crowns in 1989 and 1990 in his first coaching stint in Munich between 1987 and 1991.

He then coached at Spanish outfit Athletic Bilbao between 1992 and 1994, Eintracht Frankfurt and CD Tenerife before moving to Real Madrid where he delivered the Champions League to the Spanish giants in 1998 after a 32-year wait.

However, a lack of domestic success in Madrid saw him replaced at the Bernabeu and he had brief stints at Benfica and a return to Athletic Bilbao before heading back to the Bundesliga as coach of Schalke in June 2003.

In June 2006, he was appointed coach of his old club Borussia Moenchengladbach but stepped down after a dreadful run of results that saw the team drop to 17th place in the table after 14 consecutive games without a win.