New Fulham boss Felix Magath insists his notorious training methods will continue at Craven Cottage, stating that no-one has died yet in his time as a manager.
Magath – a Bundesliga winner with Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg – has carved a reputation for demanding extremely high levels of fitness from his players.
The German replaced Rene Meulensteen last week with the remit of lifting Fulham out of the bottom three with only 12 league games remaining, but Magath insists his methods are not going to change for his first job outside of his homeland. “Why I should change my training? I am the most successful coach of Germany.
“Why should I change? Until now everyone has loved my training. No-one died!”
Ahead of Saturday’s game against West Brom, Fulham are four points shy of 17th place and safety, but Magath is optimistic they can secure their top-flight future through hard work.
“In the next months we will have a lot of work to avoid relegation but in the first days here the work we’ve achieved has been very good. I’m sure we will avoid relegation with this team as the players are willing to avoid relegation,” he said.
Magath had been out of work since leaving Wolfsburg for the second time in October 2012 and expressed limited sympathy for Meulensteen, his assistant manager Ray Wilkins and first-team technical director Alan Curbishley, who have all left Craven Cottage.
“I was sacked a few times also, I know the situation and I’m sorry for each coach,” he added. “But we have here a situation where the management waited a long time.
“I think if you want to change something you have to do it now. It was late to change the team and change the atmosphere to have a chance to stay in the league.
“It doesn’t look like it worked well enough so I don’t care about the reason for the manager before [why he was sacked]. I don’t know what he had done, I don’t care. “I take over my duties and look forward to doing the best I can.”
