David's in need of confidence boost

NOBODY thinks twice about ascribing a player's poor performance to a lack of confidence, but what about a struggling manager? Since keeping Huddersfield in the Premier League a year after winning promotion in 2017, David Wagner has been through the wringer.

- Chris Dunlavy 

Sacked by the Terriers in January 2019 after losing eight straight games, Wagner joined Schalke. This time, he went a club-record 18 matches without a win and was dismissed following an 8-0 hiding at the hands of Bayern Munich.

Swiss side Young Boys had just won a fourth consecutive title when Wagner replaced Gerardo Seoane in the summer of 2021, and by an absurd 31-point margin. They finished the subsequent season 16 points adrift of champions FC Zurich. Wagner was gone by March.

Out of work for ten months before joining Norwich, the German is now on the precipice once again after a 3-1 humiliation at home to Blackburn left the Canaries with a solitary win from their last nine games.

Wagner's quality as a coach is beyond repute. Huddersfield's promotion - let alone survival - is up there with any of the great Premier League fairytales.

Nor is he solely to blame for the Canaries' wretched form. There's a new majority shareholder in Mark Attanasio. An impending change of sporting director, with key Wagner ally Stuart Webber handing the reins to Ben Knapper at the end of the month.