Christian Fuchs: Premier League winner fighting for League Two survival

Newport have four games left this season – including the Harrogate encounter – and they finish their campaign with what could be a decisive final fixture at Barrow.

The lower reaches of League Two are a far cry from Fuchs’ playing days, during which he won 78 caps for Austria, played in Germany’s Bundesliga and represented Schalke and Leicester in the Champions League.

Those achievements set a high bar, though Fuchs would rank survival with Newport among his finest feats.

“It would definitely be very high up,” he says. “But I don’t want to get ahead of myself because, as short as the season is now with four games left, there’s still a lot of work that needs to go in.

“I completely trust this team. I think one strength my players definitely have is to deal with setbacks. That’s been the story of the whole season.”

The latest setback was Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Notts County, three days after a 2-0 loss at home to relegation rivals Crawley Town.

Fuchs is synonymous with Leicester’s Premier League title win. He and his team-mates from 2016 will always be heroes to Foxes fans.

But the 40-year-old wants to be known as a coach now and victory against Harrogate would go some way to ensuring he keeps Newport up.

“That [Premier League title] is what everybody knows, but I also was on the other end at some point, and this is definitely not a nice situation to be in and it’s worth it for everybody to do everything to avoid it [relegation],” Fuchs says.

“Every point counts and we need to make sure that we are at our best on Saturday, to go for the three points.

“We’ve looked at them [Harrogate], we’ve seen what they’re all about. All I can tell you right now is that we’ll be ready.”