David Wagner refuses to panic despite Huddersfield’s alarming slide into the Premier League relegation battle

Huddersfield suffered a seventh defeat since the new year against a Crystal Palace side just below them in the table

David Wagner remains positive despite Huddersfield’s poor form (Getty Images)

David Wagner refused to panic about Huddersfield Town’s relegation battle despite a seventh defeat since the new year against a Crystal Palace side just below them in the table.

Goals from James Tomkins and Luka Milivojevic were enough to earn the Eagles a straightforward win in a game where they rarely had to get out of second gear, so poor were their West Yorkshire hosts. The victory lifted Palace out of the relegation zone and to just one point and place behind Huddersfield in 15th as their fall towards the bottom in 2018 continues.

Wagner has every right to panic. His team are on the slide and are not offering up the goods. They managed just one shot on target against Palace at home – which didn’t come until the 80th minute – to see their shyness in front of goal continue. They have managed just seven goals in their last 11 games and four of those came in one match against Bournemouth.

But Wagner was adamant they can turn it around. He said: 
"To be totally honest I don't have the feeling that the players are starting to panic. I think first of all we have to separate each game from another. In the last game against Swansea [which they drew 0-0 despite having 30 shots on goal] we were unlucky hit the post, hit the bar, anything. Today we underperformed, but we know exactly what was our mistake today and if you know what went wrong you relatively easily can deal with it."


The Terriers started their first ever season in the Premier League brightly – winning four of their first 11, including against Manchester United – to suggest they may settle to life in the top flight. But a slide in results after the turn of the year has seen them dragged right back into the mix. Wagner, however, remains confident his side can avoid an immediate return to the Championship because he knows what his players have been doing wrong.

He added: “You struggle if you don’t know your problem. Against Palace it was obvious; we were always one or two yards too late, because we were not good enough in ball possession and they have the pace and the quality to beat you if you give them these two or three yards.

“This is why there is no reason to panic, not because of the table or the results or the points we have. Yes we are still in a comfortable position but there is no reason to panic because we know exactly what we have done wrong and we have done it much better this season already.”

And when quizzed on whether his team have the confidence to earn enough points in their final seven games to earn a history second season in the top flight for the club Wagner was equally bullish. He said: “We cannot now say after we conceded a defeat against a team which was in and around us in the table that this should have influence on our confidence [as] in the past we won games against these opponents.

"I think it makes no sense to be only focused on the individual result, you have to be focused on your performance and our performance was not good enough. 
In general the season gets more exciting at the end and this is usually what happens, the good thing is nobody thought that it will be exciting for us as well because everybody thought we were far away enough from the bottom of the league.


"If we perform like today seven further times then no, no chance [of staying up] but if we perform like the games before - like against Swansea or like against West Brom and Bournemouth - then yeah no doubt about it. We have to do better but I am pretty confident and I know that we can do it because we have done it in the past and this is what we will do in the future as well."