Narcis Pelach to join Norwich City backroom staff

Norwich City will confirm the addition of Huddersfield Town assistant coach Narcis ‘Chico’ Pelach to David Wagner’s backroom staff in the coming days.

The 34-year-old Spaniard had also interviewed for the managerial vacancy at relegated Championship side Blackpool, who won their final game of the season at Carrow Road. They reappointed Neil Critchley to the role on Tuesday.

Pelach has been at The John Smith’s Stadium for three years, initially brought in under Carlos Corberan having been assistant coach in La Liga 2 with Girona the previous season.

Pelach played his part in leading Huddersfield to third in the Championship and a 2022 play-off final defeat against Nottingham Forest. He then opted to stay at Huddersfield, despite Corberan’s resignation last summer.

Pelach has been a popular figure around the club but things have been more difficult for Huddersfield this season. Pelach has served under three managers: Danny Schofield, Mark Fotheringham and Neil Warnock.

He also took interim charge of the first team either side of Fotheringham’s 21-game reign, winning his sole game at home to Cardiff in September but losing his two away games — at Wigan and Stoke — in February.

In the final weeks of the season under Warnock, Huddersfield did at least repair their desperate situation to achieve Championship survival with a game to spare. Warnock decided to leave at the end of the season and Huddersfield did not consider Pelach for their own vacancy.

Pelach came through the ranks of Girona’s academy as a defender and became a first-team professional. He later returned as head coach of their under-23 side.

He will now become the latest Huddersfield connection at Norwich; a trend that began with Stuart Webber joining as sporting director in April 2017.

Head of football development Steve Weaver, head of strategy and innovation John Iga, current first-team coach Andrew Hughes and Norwich’s former head of north England academy recruitment, Danny Hoyle, all joined through previous connections to Huddersfield — as did Norwich’s current first-team head coach Wagner and his assistant, Christoph Buhler.

Hughes had been splitting his time between his current coaching role and previous post of loans manager, since Wagner’s appointment in January. Webber confirmed in an interview with The Athletic on Friday that Norwich will now make an internal appointment to take over the role of loans manager.

The club also remains without a set-piece coach following the February exit of Allan Russell, who had also taken caretaker charge of the first team for two games alongside Weaver following Dean Smith’s sacking in December. Russell was the club’s first appointment to the set-piece specialist role.

Norwich have trailed a significant amount of change this summer after their Premier League promotion bid finished in a bottom-half Championship finish.

The club has already confirmed veteran striker Ashley Barnes will join on July 1 following the expiry of his contract at EFL champions, Burnley, with Webber also stating his confidence that a further player signing is expected this week.

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