David Wagner is less concerned about Championship rivals working out his Norwich City plan than his players finding the missing ingredient at Huddersfield.

Victorious Sunderland chief Tony Mowbray was quick to highlight the regressive stats around individual defensive errors from the Canaries this season, and the potential rewards of deploying a high press, in his side's 1-0 weekend league win.

Wagner maintains the antidote is not an elaborate tactical overhaul.

“The answer is quite easy. Because at the end of the day we haven't brought the energy on the grass or the intensity. Something which should be natural for us, and we have shown consistently in the past,” he said, ahead of Wednesday’s reunion with his old English club Huddersfield. “This is what we missed. And without this, we are not as good as we can be.

"Every manager can have his own thoughts on how we like to set up as a team. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not tactically. But what can't be the case is that we are not on our best in terms of energy and intensity. And this was what we missed on Sunday.

"The squad is very critical towards themselves, and they know exactly what went wrong. And now we have the opportunity to show a better face.

“We've spoke about it honestly; at the end of the day, they are humans, it should not happen, but it happens. We have to be honest to ourselves and speak to everybody about what went wrong, or good. And this is what we always have done.

"Maybe allow them 24 hours to be feel disappointed. Then it's all about looking forward.”

Wagner is prepared to make late calls on the fitness of Max Aarons (knee) and Onel Hernandez (ankle) after early second half exits at Carrow Road.

Josh Sargent has come through his first outing in a few weeks, while Jon Rowe had another 45 minutes in a practice game on Monday to put himself in the frame for the Championship run in.

“He is someone we have in the back of our head,” said Wagner, who indicated he had no other fitness issues from those on duty against the Black Cats. “If this will be Huddersfield, or Saturday, or maybe after international break? I think it will show up the next days.

“Josh came through very well and he has looked good in training. He maybe felt that in three weeks you can lose a little bit of your fitness.

"Three games in six days is a great challenge. It's something totally different to play three games in six days, or three games in eight days. They all have the right to ask for the starting shirt.

"This is the truth. You can get asked to deliver as a starter on a Sunday, but the Wednesday game can look totally different, so it might suit a different player because of the tactical decision. I challenge my players and whatever I ask them to do they invest everything for the team.

“We are looking forward to it. We are prepared for it. We are excited about it. Obviously, we have to correct something, because what we did on Sunday was not good enough, and we would like to correct it immediately against Huddersfield.

"We would like to show what we are capable of. And this is more than we have shown last Sunday.”