Norbert Meier on Monday became the fifth Bundesliga coach sacked so far this season in the wake of Darmstadt's 2-0 defeat against Hamburg.

After crisis talks earlier in the day, Darmstadt took the unusual step of firing both Meier and sports director Holger Fach after a run of six straight defeats -- five in the Bundesliga and one in the German Cup.

"After an analysis, we came to the conclusion that we need new impulses to counteract the negative trend," said club president Ruediger Fritsch after fans shouted 'Meier out!' during Sunday's defeat to Hamburg.

"That's why we decided to take this step."

Ramon Berndroth, sports director of the club's youth academy, steps in as caretaker coach for Saturday's game at Freiburg as Darmstadt prepare to host Bavarian giants Bayern Munich on December 18.

Meier, a former West Germany international, had only been in charge since July 1 when he replaced Dirk Schuster, who had taken the team from the third division to Germany's top flight before leaving to coach Augsburg.

But under Meier, Darmstadt won just two of their 13 league games this season and are currently third from bottom.

Meier joins Viktor Skrypnyk (Werder Bremen), Bruno Labbadia (Hamburg), Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg) and Markus Kauczinski (Ingolstadt) who have all been sacked since September by Bundesliga teams.

The respective clubs make up the last five in Germany's top flight.