Comment: Serious, passionate, loyal - incoming Huddersfield Town head coach Mark Fotheringham

The mission that Huddersfield Town's prospective new head coach inherited with Felix Magath at Hertha Berlin in March was a firefighting one.

They took over a relegation-haunted team who had lost eight of their previous 10 Bundesliga games - and were seemingly heading only one way. They stayed up after a sweet play-off win over Hamburg.

In Fotheringham's words, the 'heart and soul' returned to Hertha alongside structure and organisation in tandem with Magath, whose intense approach to tactics and fitness has earned him many nicknames in Germany ranging from ‘Medicine Ball Magath’ to ‘Saddam Hussein’.

Fotheringham now looks set to take over a Town side who are not in the same strife as Hertha but need lifting all the same after a hard start to 2022-23.

Fotheringham is certainly confident in his own convictions to back himself. Speaking earlier this year, the Scot, who has had an eclectic playing and coaching career, said: "I'm born to be a manager. I'm learning from one of the best in the world (in Magath).”

The 38-year-old is plainly ambitious and deadly serious about his work. He is also passionate, does not suffer fools and is loyal.

After helping Ingolstadt to promotion to the second-tier of German football at the end of 2020-21, he quit alongside manager Tomas Oral.

He rejected the chance of replacing his close friend out of loyalty and went onto link up with Magath, who he served as a player at Fulham.

As for the passion and not suffering of fools? Earlier this year, he rounded on a German reporter after being asked whether he had shown the Hertha players the famous movie Braveheart to provide motivation ahead of a game he was taking in the absence of the Covid-hit Magath.

Fotheringham responded in fluent German: “That’s not funny what you’re saying about Braveheart. I’m a serious, young coach."

His new journey at Huddersfield Town should be interesting and worth following in the coming weeks and months.