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Huddersfield Town were sorry to see David Wagner go but believe they can survive without him
David Wagner’s departure from Huddersfield Town was sealed in a meeting on Sunday morning, when feelings were still raw from a draw with Cardiff City the previous day that the German had declared a must-win game for his team, eight points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table.
The 47-year-old who took Huddersfield back to the top-flight of English football for the first time in 45 years, and then kept them there last season, was afforded a very affectionate farewell from the club and its owner Dean Hoyle. It was a joint decision, Hoyle said, borne of Wagner’s “genuine love for the club” and given the lavishing of praise, you had to wonder whether there was anything he would not do for Huddersfield – apart from, it would appear, be their manager.
Behind the scenes there is no question that Hoyle believes that Huddersfield can still stay up, and certainly sees that as a far more preferable option to trying to return via the Championship. It is the club’s owner, a driven 51-year-old self-made multi-millionaire, who is the true power at Huddersfield. While Wagner’s belief in the squad, and his energy for the fight to stay in the Premier League, has ebbed, Hoyle is understood to have the next man lined up to watch Sunday’s home game against Manchester City and take over the following week.
They were promoted to the Premier League two summers ago with a wage bill of just £11 million, and a team spirit that made them more than the sum of their parts. As the club has tried to trade players to make it better suited to Premier League survival some of that spirit has been lost and mistakes have inevitably been made. Like many overachieving Championship managers, Wagner, and the club’s German director of football Olaf Rebbe, have been less sure-footed in the European transfer market.
The club sold Michael Hefele in the summer, while Dean Whitehead retired. Last January, Martin Cranie was allowed to leave for Middlesbrough. All were inevitably going to be required less in the Premier League but the strong character they brought to the dressing room has not been replaced. Tom Ince, who played a major role in last season’s survival, was sold to Stoke City. The spirit that had seen the club beat the odds for two seasons in a row has been much less evident this time around.
There have been bad injury problems, including the knee ligament injury for Aaron Mooy which has kept Huddersfield’s Australia international out from more than a month. There have also been disappointments among the new signings. No goal yet for Isaac Mbenza, the Belgian striker signed on loan from Montpellier. None either for Adama Diakhaby, the 22-year-old French striker signed from Monaco for £8 million. Ramadan Sobhi, the Egyptian defender signed from Stoke City for £6 million last summer has already been sent off on loan.
Scoring goals have been a major problem for Wagner’s team and the proposed solution to that problem – signing Shinji Okazaki from Leicester City – has raised some doubts. The Japan international has not scored for his current club since December 2017. The team have lacked a striker who can offer something different to Laurent Depoitre or Steven Mounie, a player capable of making runs in behind a defence, but no solution has been forthcoming.
Huddersfield’s 2017 promotion was unexpected, their budget small, and time limited to build that first season Premier League team but the consensus they survived on the spirit instilled by their manager, and some sensible signings. In his second season, like many managers do, Wagner tried to push the club on but went in the wrong direction. It was not going to get him sacked given past achievements but his own lack of belief that there a way out of the problem will have made it obvious on Sunday that something had to change.
At the start of last season, Hoyle talked about his own fears for a smaller club new to the Premier league. “They say the problem is not year one or two, it's year three, four or five when you convince yourself you're an established Premier League club. The fans are quite bored of mid-to-bottom survival, so then you push the boat out, and try to break into the top ten. Things go disastrously wrong and you end up in the relegation fight with a wage bill that's not sustainable.”
He has said that Huddersfield will not be overstretched financially but clearly feels that they are still in the reckoning to survive and wants to do something about it while he still can. Wagner has departed with his reputation still intact and his mark on a successful era of the club. They were certainly sorry to see him go, but Huddersfield clearly believe they can still survive without him.