Tom Hounsell: Interim Success at Wycombe Wanderers

Tom Hounsell is in no rush to make this about him.

Three games, three wins, a club dragged off the canvas and breathing again in League One – and still the interim Wycombe Wanderers head coach wants the spotlight pointed firmly elsewhere.

Hounsell stepped in after Michael Duff’s sacking earlier this month, inheriting a side marooned in the relegation places and short on belief. At 30, with only a brief interim spell at Burton Albion on his managerial CV, he could easily have been overwhelmed by the scale of the task.

Instead, he has lit the place up.

His first game brought a wild 3-2 victory away at Leyton Orient, a result that felt like a jolt of electricity through a flat season. Wycombe then backed it up by beating Chelsea Under-21s in the EFL Trophy, before Saturday’s win over Wigan confirmed this was no one-off surge of adrenaline.

From second-bottom to 14th in the table in the space of a few weeks. The numbers speak loudly enough. Hounsell, though, refuses to.

Asked whether he wants the job on a permanent basis, he would not bite.

"I've said it before. My thoughts are never on myself, it's about the group of players," he told BBC Three Counties Radio, leaning hard into the team-first message that has underpinned this turnaround. "I'm employed by this football club, ultimately, to help us get wins. That's my commitment and it's a commitment from the whole staff."

The results suggest that commitment is cutting through. Performances have sharpened, confidence has returned, and the league table no longer looks like a warning sign.

Hounsell talks about process, not plaudits. "I'm pleased with the work we're doing, pleased with the momentum we're taking, pleased with the week that we've had," he said, before quickly applying the brakes. "But I haven't thought more about it than that."

For a coach at the start of his career, the temptation to campaign publicly for the role would be obvious. Hounsell goes the other way. He talks about the chair, not the man who might sit in it.

"Whoever is manager of this football club is in an incredibly blessed position. It's an incredibly privileged role to have," he said. "Whatever happens with the manager's post, that individual will be extremely lucky to work with this group of players and the structure and processes that exist behind the scenes."

The message is clear: the project is bigger than the caretaker. But with Wycombe climbing and the mood transformed, the question now hangs over Adams Park – how long can a club ignore a start like this?