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'I reckon that the chances of us transforming our fortunes are less than Leicester lifting the Premier League, so they are in our favour, right?' The Austrian veteran is reflecting on his fresh chapter as boss of the League Two strugglers, and the monumental task of staving off a fall into non-league football. This represents a challenge at the complete other end of the scale, though that fairytale title win in 2016 gave him much more than a Premier League trophy. {'It contributed to shifting my outlook a little bit ... it showed that the unattainable can be attainable,' he states.

'How Did Fuchs Find Himself Here?'

The natural place to start is: what brought Fuchs end up here? 'That's the part of the story that isn't straightforward, wouldn't you say?' he states, breaking into a chuckle. It is the 39-year-old's initial statement and a clear indication of his engaging character across a fascinating conversation. Discourse flows in different directions, from playing for Thomas Tuchel and Brendan Rodgers to the pressing need to find a nearby hairdresser.

He opens some post on his desk. Among it is a note from a Leicester supporter sending best wishes, paired with a couple of glossy photos from that season. {'Young Fuchs,' he muses, smiling. Another package brings a hoard of old Panini stickers, one from an album marking Euro 2016, when he skippered Austria. A greeting from the Newport Supporters’ Club has pride of place. Things like this makes me very happy,' he states.

A Previous Visit and a Misspelt Name

Prior to coming back from North Carolina to take on his first job in first-team coaching last month, Fuchs’s most recent encounter to Rodney Parade was in January 2019, when Leicester were on the end of a Newport shock defeat in the FA Cup third round. That day a former full-back faced off against Fuchs. {'He had the match of his life,' Fuchs says. But when the lineup cards dropped, an amusing error emerged. {'You need to censor this,' Fuchs says with a smile. 'They misspelt my name – somehow a 'k' smuggled itself in in place of the 'h'. It is amusing because Fuchs, in German, means fox, so it’s something pleasant.'

Experiences from The Tinkerman, Rodgers and Tuchel

His decision to join the Foxes in the summer of 2015 turned out to be brilliant. A couple of weeks later Leicester hired Claudio Ranieri and what followed is legendary. The Italian came to the club in the heart of a pre-season camp in Austria and his light-touch approach did the trick. {'When you look at Claudio you imagine an seasoned professional, so experienced in the game, maybe a bit traditional, but he’s so not,' Fuchs states. {'He just said he was going to observe training in Austria for the first week. He remained on the sidelines at all. After that week we had a meeting and he said: 'I’ve studied you for a week and I’m not going to alter anything.''

Fuchs values lessons learned from Rodgers and Tuchel, under whom he worked while on loan at Mainz. {'He always considered: ‘How can I get additional out of the players? How can I test them psychologically?’’ Fuchs says of Tuchel. {'That’s a big part of our methodology as well. How can you make good players who choose wisely? Back then he was probably in a comparable position to where I am now … very driven, very keen to prove himself.'

Roots and a Stubborn Nature

Fuchs’s motivation comes from his childhood in Neunkirchen. {'There are comparisons to where we are now, because I was told when I was 11 years old that I would never be good enough,' he shares. {'There are people who let that defeat them or there are people who say: ‘Fuchs you, I’m going to show you.’ I’ve been told too many times: ‘You can't do this, you can not do that.’ I’m going to demonstrate that I can and give absolutely everything. The other thing about my personality is: I’m quite stubborn. If I see promise, I’m going for it.'

Detailed Approach and the Battle for Survival

Fuchs’s assistant, Mark Smith, was born in Newport and previously led Fuchs’s Fox Soccer Academy. Fuchs boots up his laptop to show analytics from a recent 2-2 draw, sharing a slide he showed his players. {'The team hit many, many season peaks,' he explains, noting ball progression and statistics about breaking defensive lines. Passing accuracy was shown as 87%. {'Not happy with that … that needs to be in the mid-90s,' he insists. {'My first game, it was very physical, lower-league football, but we want to be different. I think a five-yard pass has a higher probability to be successful than just launching it all the time.'

The general numbers paint grim reading. Newport have won three of 19 league matches and are yet to win in eight in all competitions. By the time of their next home game, they will have not won a game at home for 273 days and have kept just two clean sheets in 26 matches this season. But a recent injury-time equaliser with 10 men earned a crucial point. {'We need to be a dominant side at home,' Fuchs stresses. {'It’s just not acceptable, not even having a win. We need to construct a fortress.'

One of the Lads at Heart

By his own confession, Fuchs relishes a challenge. {'What’s so bad with that?' He hung up his boots less than three years ago and, like Tuchel, enjoys being in the thick of things. {'I’m a component of the group. I’m still a player inside,' he says, tapping his chest. {'At training I’m always participating in the boxes – two nutmegs already, yes! I want us to view each other as one team. Yes, you’re the ones on the field, but we’re all in this together, we’re striving towards this collectively.'