Why Martyn Waghorn thinks Mark Fotheringham 'lost' the dressing room at Huddersfield Town | OneFootball

The Championship veteran spent a short time on loan at Huddersfield Town during Mark Fotheringham's brief time as manager

Martyn Waghorn has commented on his time playing under Mark Fotheringham at Huddersfield Town, saying that "he didn't really see the method behind the madness" of his tactics.

Waghorn's time at the then-John Smith's Stadium came during the twilight years of his career. At age 32, he was falling out of favour at parent club Coventry City and thus was loaned out for the second half of the 2022/23 campaign to seek more game time.

That would prove to be the final time he played in the second tier, and it almost ended in relegation, if not for the great escape done by the squad under Neil Warnock once Fotheringham was sacked.

Fotheringham only managed a 134-day stint in the dugout at Huddersfield, and both he and Terriers fans probably would like to forget it. It turns out that his players do, too.

Waghorn's arrival was just over three weeks before Fotheringham was relieved of his duties, but during that time, the Championship forward veteran found out everything he needed to know about his style.

Martyn Waghorn says that Mark Fotheringham's style of play lost the dressing room

Waghorn recently appeared on the Under the Cosh podcast, where he discussed his time winding down at Coventry and his subsequent loan move to Huddersfield.

The 35-year-old had been a part of numerous play-off sides in the Championship, and had a successful stint in Scotland with Rangers, too, so he knew what an effective set-up looked like, and unfortunately, Fotheringham didn't have that.

Fotheringham focused on high-intensity, pressing football, which, in theory, does work, but in practice, his Huddersfield side were "all over the shop" according to Waghorn.

"My agent rang me and said, 'Huddersfield are in for you.' I'd fallen out with Coventry at this time, so I'd waived a lot of bonuses. I didn't care. I just wanted to go and leave," he said.

"So I went to Huddersfield. I knew the assistant, Kenny Miller. He was like, 'Are you ready for this? It's hard,' and I was like, 'You could have told us this two weeks ago!

"I said I was ready for it, I was desperate to get out and play again.

"He was so intense. With Uwe [Rosler, his coach at Wigan Athletic], there was kind of a method behind the madness. With Mark, I didn't really see the method behind the madness. He was full on.

"When you spoke to him on an individual level, it was really good. The information was good. But the translation from off the field to on it, everyone was all over the shop. In an environment, you lose the lads straight away.

"Once you do that, with the running, information, everything going on, it's hard to pull it back."

Fotheringham left Huddersfield in the bottom three that February, but the Terriers went on to secure survival with ease in the few months under Neil Warnock.

Huddersfield Town's managerial decisions post-Carlos Corberan were a disaster

After making the play-off final in the 2021/22 campaign, not many expected Huddersfield to drop off as drastically as they did, and that's mainly due to who they brought in to replace Carlos Corberan after he resigned following the final defeat to Nottingham Forest.

The Terriers went internal, but development coach Danny Schofield lasted just nine games in the hot seat before he was axed in favour of Fotheringham.

It was another left-field choice, as Fotheringham's coaching past hadn't seen him be the main man before, and after a record of just five wins in 21 games at Huddersfield, it's not much of a surprise that the 42-year-old hasn't been given another managerial role since.

Just a year following on from a play-off run, the Terriers had to scratch and claw to stay in the division, and then a year after that, they were relegated to League One.

Waghorn may not have seen the method to Fotheringham's madness whilst playing there, and a lot of Huddersfield fans still don't see a method to the madness which saw them fall dramatically from the brink of the Premier League to the third tier in a few years.