Michael Duff explains reasons for becoming new Wycombe head coach and outlines his plans

Michael Duff explains the reasons for becoming new Wycombe head coach and outlines his plans after the Chairboys sacked Mike Dodds.

Duff expressed excitement about joining the club – who sit 19th in League One – despite a whirlwind appointment process, and sees Wycombe as the right fit due to its focus on a long-term project, building “brick by brick” rather than seeking instant success, aligning with his desire to create something sustainable after high-pressure roles elsewhere.

The aim is to balance Wycombe’s recent emphasis on possession with the gritty, hard-working ethos needed to win games, drawing on his experience at clubs like Cheltenham and Barnsley.

He noted the club’s transitional phase, with a young squad and developing infrastructure, and is eager to work with the players to instill a versatile style that combines attacking football with resilience.

Duff also touched on the potential of Wycombe’s new academy, stressing that young players must earn first-team opportunities through talent and mentality. With a match against Northampton looming, he hopes his arrival will energise the team and fans, aiming for a strong start focused on results, even with limited preparation time.

Interviewer: Michael, very warm welcome to Wycombe Wanderers. It’s been a whirlwind day for everyone here associated with Wycombe Wanderers, but can you talk us through your feelings now being appointed head coach of the football club?

Michael: Well, first and foremost, delighted to be here. Like you said, it’s been a whirlwind couple of days, lots of information and lots of and fro as expected, but getting it all done, being in the stadium now, meeting the players, really happy to be here and get cracking now.

Interviewer: Why is Wycombe Wanderers the right fit for you now as a head coach at this stage in your career?

Michael: I think the most important thing to me was there’s a project to be built. A lot of people talk about projects, but speaking to the owners, it’s not just throw a load of money on it and expect instant success. They want to build something brick by brick, was the words that I got told. And that’s the bit that, you my last couple of years have been expectancy and it had to happen really quickly and it didn’t. So going back to what I’ve been at two football clubs in the first 27, 28 years of my career and I want to build something here and that’s the bit that really attracted me.

Interviewer: Of course we’ve crossed paths a number of times down the years, we’ve reminisced about that crazy five-all draw when you were at Cheltenham. The club’s changed a fair amount since then but what have been your impressions coming up against Wycombe down the last few years?

Michael: Well that’s the change, it’s coming from Gareth’s team which was everyone knew what you were going to get and now there’s a little bit more emphasis placed on the possession side of it but ultimately you can’t get away from to win games of football you’ve got to run hard you’ve got to do the horrible bits as well as the nice bits and it’s trying to get a balance of the two. You walk around the training ground and that’s what I mean in terms of like things getting built and infrastructure getting built rather than just throwing loads of money at a playing squad straight away so it’s in a transitional period there’s no getting away from that but hopefully I can come in and sort of settle it down and get us on the right track.

Interviewer: Yeah of course you inherit a squad that’s had a lot of change this summer results so far this season haven’t been what we were hoping for or expecting. How much now are you looking forward to working with that squad and now trying to drive that uplifting form?

Michael: Well think it’s a lot of young players being brought in, technical based players. I think I can help them, teach them the game of that so to speak so it’s not just about the ball, the ball, the ball, it’s what you’re doing in the other part, there’s three parts to a game. You know there’s in possession, out possession and the transitional side of it as well so it’s trying to a balance of all three things. I think you need to be able to win games in different ways. I want to play attacking football, to play entertaining football, but I want to be hard to beat as well. You I think you go back to a couple of games, we had a 5-5 here, like you said, at Cheltenham, but last year we came here at Huddersfield and to be honest, Wycombe totally dominated the game, but we dug in and found a different way of winning and ended up winning the game 1-0, probably unjustly, but that’s where we want to get to, where we do all facets of the game well.

Interviewer: Yeah, because there’s been a lot of discussion here about style of play, it’s become a real buzzword amongst the fans over the last few weeks and months. How is that going look going forward? Is it too early to say? Is it going to take a little while to evolve and kind of embed your ways of thinking into that?

Michael: Yeah, think the people get obsessed with philosophies and things like that. It the winning games of football that is the most important. We want to play fast attacking football. We want to dominate the ball, but we have to be to do the other part as well. Football hasn’t changed that much. It goes in circles. It’s 4-4-2, then it’s 4-3-3, then it’s 3-5-2. But ultimately, to win games of football, like I said, you’ve got to do the horrible bits well. You’ve got to fight, compete, run, help your mate out and that’s the bit that is the first and foremost building a framework for the team to go and have a freedom to go and express themselves and it’s getting the balance of that. We’ve got a younger team than what we did so the one thing we should do as a young team should have more energy. So that’s one thing that we should be able to bring, that’s something we had at Barnsley. My Barnsley team was a really young team but we had unbelievable energy. So that’s something that we’ll be trying to emphasise straight away.

Interviewer: And of course part of the project here is the academy you have experience within Burnley’s academy as well from a coaching perspective. It’s a really exciting new facet of Wycombe Wanderers history because it’s only just really sort of kicked off this summer. We’ve already seen the integration of young lads into the first team in some of the cup matches. That must be exciting as well for you to be working with, as you say, young players, but right down now to teenage lads coming through and hopefully springing them on in their career.

Michael: Yeah, I think that’s, speaking to the owner, was one of his real passions was getting the academy up and running and things. And again, that will take time. I’m not one for… to get a Football League appearance is hard. And the players need to realise it’s hard to get a Football League appearance. You can’t just hand them out like candy floss. They need to earn them. So, A, they need to be good enough. Their mentality needs to be good enough. The technicality of the player needs to be good enough. And if it isn’t, then it’s up to the first team staff to get into the academy and then improve, whether it’s the coaches, the sessions they put on, the players that are getting brought in. So there’s a two-way street on that one. So we don’t want to be just handing out academy appearances just for the sake of it but more than happy to work with young players. The part of the game that I love in this role sometimes you don’t get on the grass often enough because there’s so many other things to do but that’s the bit that everyone loves doing. Hopefully, like said, can get first and foremost get the first team going and then grow it from there.

Interviewer: Back to the hearing now, obviously, game just around the corner now on Saturday. Northampton, an informed team but I think your arrival today bit of a spring in the stair for some of the supporters. It could be a really special atmosphere hopefully on Saturday. You must be looking forward now to hopefully hitting the ground running and kicking off this run of form.

Michael: Yeah well it’s not a lot of prep so I won’t have a lot of involvement in terms of the preparation because we leave that with the coaches that are existing but you there’ll be a presence hopefully that it can give everyone a spring in their step and we can get a result first and foremost how it looks. Everyone’s got an ideal of how it looks but first and foremost is can you win the game? Can you get a clean sheet? Can you get three points? If you can tick all those three off, then it’s a start point. It’s not the end of the world. If we don’t, I’m a firm believer that if you keep doing the right thing often enough, and you work hard often enough, hard work will pay you back and you get your results in time. So yes, everyone, the new manager, head coach, there’ll be a bounce, there’ll be a bounce. I’m pretty certain Northampton might have something to say about that. So it’s trying to tick as many boxes as we can to give us ourselves a best chance of winning the game of football.

Twitter users reacted as Michael Duff explains the reason for becoming the new Wycombe head coach and outlines his plans…

@Charlie09310929: Fast attacking football he says 🤣

@bwfc_elliot: You can’t just say this and it becomes true. Michael Duff has always been about defensive solidity, playing for set pieces and taking lots of long shots

@J_Saunders23: Spoke really well and has said all the right things. Bring it back to the basics – win individual battles, first and second balls, be hard to beat, fight, compete and run…love that COYB! 💙

@DanUTT__: Good luck with that one

@ward__dan: Funny we didn’t see any of that in 43 games at Huddersfield….

@andyphilpot4: Much much better. Refreshing to hear that it’s all about winning games and we’re not hearing that the outcome isn’t important. Great line about not handing out 1st team debuts like candy floss.

@apcwwfc: Really positive, authoritative interview. Love the way he talks with confidence. Seems a nice guy again too, not arrogant and not afraid to mix it up. Great start.

@AndrewDobbie2: Saying what we want to hear! More passion and enthusiasm already than his predecessor.

@MVS_EnjoyerWWFC: Brilliant interview. Can tell he knows his stuff and how to get 3 points at this level.

@MaidenheadRed: This is all on another level to anything that Mike Dodds ever said at least. Love the comment about not handing out first team appearances to Academy players like confetti as well. Seems like a 360 to what was happening before.

@WycombeDJ: “people get obsessed with philosophies and things like that, winning games of footballs the most important thing” Fucking brilliant. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

@OwenReeman3: I’m fully on board already. 9 months of whatever the hell a Mike Dodds is, to this, feel like I’ve just escaped prison. Hopefully we get a lot more than just ‘moments’ and we actually win a game or two

@Dan_Htafc: Can tell you now, you’re not getting fast attacking football under duff. #chairboys

@salmon1wwfc: Already showing more passion than Mike Dodds ever did 🤣 hopefully he will deliver success!