Expert view on ‘workaholic’ Narcis Pelach as Stoke City close in on new head coach

What is Narcis Pelach’s approach as a coach, as in does he have specific football principles?

Connor Southwell: That’s an excellent question. Pelach has worked with a range of coaches from Carlos Corberan to Neil Warnock to David Wagner to Johannes Hoff Thorup. All of those players different styles and has been geared to exposing Pelach to different styles of play to aid his development as a coach. Given his alignment with Corberan, that would feel like his most natural style, but it remains to be seen how that would translate to management when it would be his ideas rather than others being implemented.

His detail and ability to work in a range of different styles show his versatility in a coaching perspective – so Pelach should be able to take all that knowledge and experience to be successful in his own right.

What’s he like as a character?

Speak to anyone about Pelach and they will mention two things – how popular he is with players and the incredible detail that he goes to in his work.

Pelach was responsible for opposition analysis under Wagner and would cover every inch of the opponent to arm himself for every situation. He is both a workaholic and capable of forming good relations with players.

He watches an incredible amount of football to monitor the ongoing trends and spent most Sundays after a Norwich game travelling to another game. Pelach spoke of how much he enjoyed watching Brighton under Roberto di Zerbi in a sit down I did with him last September.

The detail of his work always impressed those at Norwich, but so to did the execution on the training pitches. It commanded respect amongst the playing group.

Has there been an expectation that he will go on to become a manager in his own right?

Yes. He has been open about his ambitions to become a number one and had opportunities to do so before arriving – namely at Blackpool. It doesn’t come as any surprise, given how highly he’s rated inside the game, that this opportunity has presented itself.

The timing will likely frustrate Norwich given they were just beginning to settle after a frantic transfer window, but football waits for nobody. They won’t want to stand in the way of Pelach’s progress.

Pelach has had interim spells at Huddersfield and taken on key responsibilities at Norwich during his time at the club, so the next natural step is to be a head coach.

He wasn’t considered to be Norwich head coach when there was a vacancy in the summer, largely due to wanting to hire someone with managerial experience, which Johannes Hoff Thorup had at Nordsjaelland.

So, it isn’t a surprise that Pelach is set to become a head coach, but it may surprise some that opportunity has come at Stoke at this stage.

Is there anything you can tell us about him that we wouldn’t know? 

The only thing I would say is that David Wagner rated Pelach very highly – after all his years in management, he considered the Spaniard as ‘missing piece’ of his back room team, as well as keeper coach Paul Clements (who is also being linked with a move to Stoke).

“Narcis is top. He is exactly the piece that I have always missed in my backroom staff,” said Wagner. “Clem I have known before – this was the latest signing of my backroom staff but maybe the easiest one in terms of settling in because we know each other inside out. He has made some good steps in his progression.

“He is perhaps an even better goalkeeper coach than he was before; this is very easy to see after the first two weeks. Our goalkeepers enjoy the work with him as well and I know he will improve them and their game. I’m very happy to have him. Now I am very pleased with the team I have together to push this group and this football club forward.”