Huddersfield Town will play Luton tomorrow, hoping to register their first win on the calendar year and break the five game winless run we’re on. There’s even more pressure on this game as a wide section of the fanbase are feeling dejected after the transfer deadline passed without a new striker being added to the ranks. The official line may be that we’re happy with our options up front but the undignified scramble on deadline day to sign any striker with a pulse suggests the club realised, too late, that we do definitely need more backup for Fraizer Campbell.
Town’s recent poor run has meant we’ve gone from comfortably midtable to skirting perilously close to the relegation battle (or potentially right in the scrap if games in hand go against us).
Here are some of the questions we’ll find out the answer to in the game tomorrow.
Can Town overcome the dreaded “low block”?
The term low block gets tossed about quite a bit these days but as far as I can tell it’s a more technical way of saying parking the bus. This season Town have repeatedly struggled against teams that sit deep and make themselves hard to break down.
Time and time again Town have gone behind and then spent the rest of the match holding possession for long periods but haven’t been able to crack open stubborn defences. Luton aren’t a purely negative football team but they aren’t likely to leave too many gaps at the back either, so we’ll most likely see another game where Town have a lot of possession but will not have a lot of space in Luton’s final third. When we drew 1-1 with Luton last November we had nearly 70% possession but couldn’t find a winner.
Getting the better of defensive-minded teams is going to be absolutely vital for this team to make progress. Other teams have analysts that study us to try and find weaknesses and it must be such an easy job for them. Those reports must say something along the lines of: let them have the ball, press the backline to force errors and keep it tight at the back. That’s all it takes to beat us at the moment. Until we overcome this we’ll continue to drop points and struggle to become the team we aspire to be.
Will Carlos be willing to try Plan B if needed?
One of the reasons we struggle against defensive teams is our dedication to playing a certain way. The appointment of Carlos Corberán was a direct reaction to the board not liking the overly pragmatic approach the Cowleys took towards the end of their reign. There was a clearly expressed desire for a “Huddersfield Town identity” to be developed around playing possession-based, attacking football. But lately it’s felt that our dedication to playing this possession football is hurting more than it’s benefiting us.
I’m not suggesting that Town throw the new style of play in the bin but against Stoke it might have helped if we’d have started going long and trying to win knock downs in the box occasionally, particularly as the seconds ticked down and they looked more and more comfortable. All our attacking play was in front of the Stoke defence and we struggled to make them nervous with our attacks. Lumping it up to the big man isn’t always nice to watch but when the time is running out it might be worth considering another approach. We’ve already seen one game where Naby Sarr has scored the winner by pushing forward late on. Why not give him ten minutes up front to make a nuisance of himself and try knock the ball down to the attackers?
In all honesty, I don’t think Carlos is all that likely to start playing more directly when we’re chasing a game as his whole philosophy is based around playing football a certain way and if it doesn’t work you still keep on doing it until it does work. This can be painful in the short term but I suppose that dedication will potentially payoff in the longer term as the style of play beds in.
Will Holmes start?
I thought that Duane Holmes’ brief cameo from the bench was one of the positives from the Stoke game, he didn’t set the world on fire but added some creative spark and put in a couple of very nice crosses. I wonder if he will be given a go from the start against Luton. There’s some logic in playing him as he has the potential to give us some creativity and skill which may help break down Luton if they start sitting deep.
Fitting Holmes into the team becomes a bit tricky though as we know that Hogg will be returning to the starting eleven, Vallejo, Bacuna and O’Brien have all done OK recently, so there are five players competing for three midfield spots. This is the kind of selection headache we have sorely missed over recent months and will hopefully drive the standards up of the team regardless of who gets the nod.
Will our dithering over Adebayo return to haunt us?
Town were heavily linked with Elijah Adebayo before and during deadline day but he ultimately ended up going to Luton. Judging by his comments since, it seems that the deal fell through because we messed around too much and the player may want to show Town what they missed out on.
It feels preordained that he’s going to play tomorrow and most likely score against us because that’s how these things usually work out. Whether he’ll be ready to come straight into the team after signing on Monday is uncertain but it really wouldn’t be a surprise if we’re cursing our board for not signing him at five o’clock tomorrow when he’s given an attacking masterclass against us.
Can this game be the turning point for our season?
Town’s recent dip in both form and results have led to us losing the healthy cushion we had built up between us and the relegation battle. We’re now a few more bad results away from being in the thick of the teams fighting for survival. After three consecutive seasons of relegation fights, I’d hoped that this season might be a bit different and this game is an opportunity to restore some of that buffer we had built up between ourselves and the teams struggling at the bottom end of the table.
Luton aren’t as poor a side as it’s tempting to think they are. Just because they aren’t a club with a lot of recent history at this level and they operate with a tight budget it doesn’t mean they’re pushovers. They’re above us in the table for a reason and this won’t be an easy game at all. However, they are the kind of opposition that we have to get better at playing against. A win tomorrow won’t just represent three points, it will also show that we can find ways to win against teams that are tough to break down. This could be the psychological boost that the team needs and hopefully act as a turning point for the rest of the reason.
The opposite is sadly true, if Town fail to win tomorrow then this could be the point where our year of transition and midtable mediocrity slips into a relegation dogfight that we’re not really equipped for. Having seen some of the reaction from fans after the transfer window closed on Monday night, a defeat against Luton will almost certainly send many apoplectic. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Luton aren’t a club with a lot of history at this level?
Whoops, you’ve exposed my lack of knowledge about Luton’s history. I’ve updated the post.
Luton have been defensively tight most of the season and have only conceded 8 goals in the last 10 league games, so unless CC has found a magical solution to break down these kind of defences, I expect a draw at best.
Having Hogg back will make a big difference to us and if we can get ahead, then we might hold on but I still expect a draw.
If we had managed to get a striker I am not sure that we would do any differently against Luton. The striker situation is interesting. I believe the club thought we have enough but late on realised that Ward was not recovering well and should try and get cover but not at any cost. I think the club have targets for the summer but knew they could not get them in during January and did not want to sign anyone for the longer term. I think this shows a little stubbornness from Phil. I am well behind ‘the project’ and believe that we are slowly going in the right direction but sometimes you have to deviate from the plan and I think we needed to get someone in.
Whatever the result against Luton we need to see some progress from from the Stoke game.
For me Holmes should be a starter at the expense of Aarons who I think needs resting. I would play Bacuna on the left. I also think that Phillips should be given a start.
I still think we have enough quality to survive but it might be close.
You said about Carlos’s style “This can be painful in the short term but I suppose that dedication will potentially payoff in the longer term as the style of play beds in.” Where we are now is the short term and we can’t wait any longer for his style to “bed in”. You need a certain quality of player to play out from the back a la Carlos. We do not have them. Our defence is mainly from the lump it upfield brigade and for them, trying intricate passing only works for about 70% of the time. The rest of the time is mistake time hence the massive goals against figure. From the fans watching point of view, when Carlos’s methods work, the football is brilliant to watch but in this league, if you want to do well (or average!) you have sometimes to grind out results just to get points on the board. The Cowleys knew that and it is a real shame (and I think bad management) that they were not allowed to progress with Town, at least another season.
Incidentally, to get above the magic 50 points we need to draw every one of the remaining 19 matches or win 1 in every 3. Can we do that????
Why CC didn’t put Naby Sarr up front replacing Fraser Campbell with say 15 minutes to go amazes me
It seemed so obvious is fiscally alone would have presented a different defensive problem for Stoke, don’t forget he scored twice when he went up front in a recent game . Lack of ideas not impressed.
As a Luton fan – well seems you edited the post to say “recent” history – fair enough. We stormed league 1 with a very attacking flair based form of football – including the fullbacks Jack Stacey(sold for 4 million) and James Justin (who surely must be in the next England squad!). I`d say we tend to be more organised and hard working at this level – rather than negative (you did qualify that as well to be fair). We don`t tend to score that may – our strikers are not in form and we dont have 5 million to go out and splash on a ready made striker. I would say as a team ethic we beat a lot of teams in this league with much more expensive players – and we do need to make sure we are defensively sound due to lack of goals. We do have quality in midfield in the shape of KDH (on loan from leicester), and Tom Ince may well start . The striker with the very very very long name we beat you to i would expect to start on the bench. Oh and for some reason we love playing yorkshire clubs 😉
Good peace again terrier, what a state we are in if we are considering Sarr up front as a plan B maybe plan C/D when we are chasing a late equaliser but there are plenty of things that can be implemented during a game that CC at the moment doesn’t seem to want to do until the last 10mins, how many managers do we see bringing 2 subs on at half time changing things around, a plan B if things aren’t going well or giving the subs a good 30/35 mins to give them a chance to get into the game, reacted to opposition tactics etc etc but it’s CC’s way or no way at the moment, he has been hampered with injuries & I do like the way we are slowly heading but in this league things on occasions need to be changed a bit during a game or maybe start with three at the back or 2up front keep them guessing it’s a bit predictable