A ball hasn’t yet been kicked in the 2018/19 Premier League season and Huddersfield Town have already been written off by many, including the bookies. You can’t blame them really given Town’s lowly status, but I still think they’re wrong.
Here are five good reasons Town could do better than expected this season.
We’ve got David Wagner
I genuinely wouldn’t swap Wagner for any other manager in the world right now. There might be better managers out there, but there aren’t any better managers for Huddersfield Town. The way he’s turned the club’s fortunes around is incredible and I feel like he’s not yet finished the job yet with Town. He’s consistently managed to overcome expectations and he may just do the same again this coming season.
I think David Wagner will perform even better in his second Premier League season, after learning some hard lessons last season. The games against the top six involved some humbling moments and heavy defeats, but the draws against Manchester City and Chelsea suggest we’ve found a way to make life difficult for teams that, on paper, should be able to smash us quite easily.
Our new signings will make us stronger
The biggest issues with Town last season were our lack of creativity, which we’ve tried to address with Diakhaby and Sohbi’s arrivals. We also looked vulnerable at left-back but have now brought in a World Cup winner. We lacked depth in central defence, so broke our transfer record on Kongolo. These signings should all make us better.
I think most Town fans would still like to see another attacking player brought in, but even without further additions we’ve got a stronger squad now than we did this time last year. And it’s worth remembering that last season’s squad was also good enough to stay up.
Last year’s squad now have a season of Premier League experience
All the pundits wrote Town off last year because we didn’t have “Premier League experience” outside of Dean Whitehead and the handful of games Tom Ince had played. Now all but our latest signings have a season of Premier League experience under their belts and know what to expect.
I honestly think Premier League experience is overrated and disproportionately inflates player’s transfer fees. However, we’ve proven ourselves to be capable of matching any Premier League side on our day and this will give our players confidence.
The fans, players, coaches, and chairman are all aligned
Talking about the bond between the players and the fans, or the coach and the chairman is a football cliché that gets trotted out fairly regularly, but it’s genuinely true at Huddersfield Town. At other clubs the fans, players, managers, and owners regularly turn on each other when results go against teams, but I don’t expect that at Town, and it could make a huge difference.
Imagine the difference it must make to the players on the pitch between hearing your fans chanting for the manager to be sacked or hearing them giving their full backing regardless of the result. We need to keep that unity and belief that’s helped us achieve so much in the last two seasons.
Other teams will blow up around us
This final point is a fairly negative one, but it’s worth remembering that other teams will struggle this season. Last season there were 15 managerial changes in the Premier League (16 if you include Conte leaving Chelsea).
While other teams may sack their manager at the first sign of trouble, Town’s stability off the field should hopefully mean we can get the results we need on the pitch. The Premier League looks like it could be a tough division next season, but by the time November comes around there will be a few sides that are already looking doomed, all Town have to do is stay ahead of those teams.
I believe Town will stay up and the reasons being are.
With the signing of Kongolo and a World Cup winner our defence should leak less goals. Our midfield with the new signings and Pritchard playing the full season the midfield looks much stronger and should create more goals. Our two forwards are both very good players and l expect them to score more goals.Putting all these things together l believe we will let in less goals have more of the ball and score more goals resulting in more points. The season we have just had will have made the players better. The manager will also be even better. This should translate into another good year for
Town.
Thank you Dean Hoyle and David Wagner.
Good luck to all the players.
Steve Australia