Michael Duff had his first press conference as Huddersfield Town manager on Thursday and I think he made a very good first impression. He comes across as a straight forward, humble and decent sort of guy that wants to do well and has some ideas about how to do it. I was far less impressed by the man sitting next to him, Sporting Director, Mark Cartwright, who answered all his questions by talking himself up, making excuses and spewing out management speak. 

So in this article I’m going to cover the things that I found encouraging in the press conference and a few of the things that left me a bit unimpressed. On balance, I felt more positive about Town’s situation by the end of it than I did before and I’m feeling pretty good about the upcoming season in League One. 

He’s excited to be Huddersfield Town manager 

The overwhelming impression I got from Michael Duff from this initial press conference was that he is really happy to be back in football management, and specifically to be managing Huddersfield Town. Andre Breitenreiter clearly thought that managing our club in League One was beneath him, despite the fact that his record of two wins in thirteen games hardly suggested he deserved to be kept on. But Duff’s eagerness to get stuck into the task of turning the team’s fortunes around was welcome after the broken figure Breitenreiter presented to the media after just two and a half months at the club. 

Duff said at one point, “The players need a rest, I don’t, I’m ready to go,” which I think is a plus point of bringing in a manager who is coming in after a spell out of football. He’s been resting up since getting the sack from Swansea so is ready to hit the ground running, rather than needing time to recover from the season that has just finished. Meaning he can be involved straight away in all the work behind the scenes to get next season sorted out. 

Enthusiasm isn’t everything but it’s a nice contrast to our previous head coach, who seemed weary and fed up by the end of his tenure,

He sees Huddersfield Town as a big club

With Town being known as the Terriers, it’s common for outsiders to call us a small, scrappy underdog, taking on the big boys. It was refreshing to hear Michael Duff talking about Huddersfield Town in League One as the exact opposite – he believes we will be among the big dogs of League One and will need to be prepared for that. 

He was quick to point out that we cannot go in expecting promotion or anything to be gifted to us on a silver platter. In fact, I remember how hard being a strong team in League One made things for Town in the Lee Clark era. We had a good team but other sides would often set up to frustrate us and then spring into life in the late stages and snatch late goals to get unlikely draws. I like that Duff already understands the challenges that are likely to be ahead for Town and is no doubt thinking about how we can overcome them. 

In the past, managers and executives have talked up Town’s small dog status in order to make it seem like we’re overachieving when we do well. But we have a great history and historically are a team that hovers around the second tier of English football, with the odd foray into the upper echelons every now and again. So in League One, it’s right to consider ourselves one of the bigger teams that other clubs will see as a scalp that they’ll want to claim. 

Sweat on the shirt is a minimum 

Michael Duff played under Sean Dyche for many years and has a lot of his mannerisms and techniques. One of them is repeating simple messages, over and over again until they become mantras. “Sweat on the shirt” is likely to be one we hear a lot of. It’s something he often mentions, I’ve heard Barnsley fans mention he talked about it during his time there too. He wants all his players to show that they’ve put the effort in. Some will respond well to this and others will not be so keen – good. If there are some that don’t fancy working hard then we need to find them quickly and get rid of them. 

With the vocal criticism of last season’s jolly down to Cornwall being too soft on the players in preseason, it’s likely that Duff is going to be pretty brutal on his squad in preseason. If any videos are released of the sessions, expect to see players being put through their paces and levels of exertion we’ve not seen since the “murderball” days of Carlos Corberan’s tenure.

The thing that resonated about this talk about getting the players to work hard though, was that Michael Duff believed in giving supporters a team to be proud of. We’ve not had that lately, and we have in the past. It goes beyond results and is more about seeing performances you feel represent the players best efforts. Which is why Town fans typically prefer honest, hard-working players over fancy Dan types that don’t put a full shift in.  It’s far easier to forgive a lack of skill than it is a lack of effort.

Three non-negotiables: fit, strong and organised 

Going back to soundbites, Duff insists that all his teams stick to the three non-negotiables of being fit, strong and organised. The fit and strong elements, he was keen to emphasise, mean both the mental as well as physical side of the game. I think we’ve seen that all three of these aspects have been particularly weak in Huddersfield Town in the last season. We’ve regularly conceded late goals in games because we’ve lacked fitness, been muscled out of games by physically stronger teams (often in midfield) and our organisation has been muddled at best – with teams waltzing through our defence and some players taking marking up as more of an optional extra in their duties rather than a bare minimum. The number of times we’ve conceded four or more goals this season also points towards a kind of collective mental weakness in the squad, where we’ve thrown the towel in and let opponents have their way with us once we’ve gone behind in games. 

So these non-negotiables, if properly embedded, could strike to the heart of the biggest problems within the squad and bring about some fundamental changes. The fitness and strength sides are to do with individual qualities within the players but the organised bit will be to do with Duff’s coaching. I really hope he can make us a cohesive unit and get us playing with a system that has a plan – as lately it’s felt like Town have gone into games and just let them happen to them. There’s been a gameplan of sorts but it’s mostly been to try and snatch something when we’ve smashed the ball downfield. 

The bulk of the transfer business should be done before preseason starts 

I’m going to be quite critical of Mark Cartwright later in this article but one thing I liked from his comments was his intention to get most of our transfer business done early in the window. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but it seems that the club hopes to get a lot of its transfer dealings done either this month or next, so we have most of the squad assembled by the time everyone gets back to Canalside in late June. Unless I misunderstood the comments. But it sounded like Catrwright said the plan was to make two or three signings and then it’ll be one in, one out. But several players are already up for sale, judging from the comments in the retained list that was published yesterday.

Duff’s visits to high-performance environments 

It wasn’t a huge focus on the press conference, but I like the fact that Michael Duff has been to visit a variety of different environments to study what makes them successful. He mentioned that he’s been to see the Red Arrows, Royal Marines and the Olympic boxing team. He also talked about creating a world class environment at Burnley when he was a player and Cheltenham when he was a manager. I think this idea is interesting, he explicitly said that the players at Burnley weren’t the best in the world but because the environment was very good it brought the best out of them. 

I think in every line of work it can be very easy to get stuck in your own way of working and stick to the things you’ve always done, so it’s good that he’s open to learning from different environments. What you can learn from other workplaces might be limited because typical marines and professional footballers are very different people but I suspect there’ll be some things he’ll take away from these experiences. And it hints towards a person that’s curious and wants to learn. 

“I’ve never failed through lack of hard work”

Duff said that he’s never failed at anything because of a lack of hard work, which is encouraging to hear. While he’s hardly going to face the local media and tell them he’s hoping to do this job in his spare time while he pursues his dream of becoming an actor, he did come across as fully invested. He also mentioned how he watched nearly every under 18s game and every under 23s game at Barnsley – nodding towards a work ethic that he’ll hopefully replicate in Huddersfield. I think these answers were indirectly addressing the concerns about him still living a long distance from Huddersfield. 

Duff talked more directly about his living situation in his interview with the club’s internal media team on Thursday. He’s going to be living in Huddersfield during the working week and going home on rest days by the sounds of it. Which sounds like a pretty tough way to divide your work and home life but it’s how he did it at Barnsley and he is obviously committed to the cause.

Some things I didn’t like 

Mark Cartwright has taken a lot of stick from Town fans since his arrival at Town. Some unfair. But I found his performance in this press conference very strange. Where Kevin Nagle’s end of season diary saw the club’s owner being contrite about the mistakes of the past year and acknowledging the problems Andre Breitenreiter had highlighted in his recent media outbursts, Cartwright seemed to be in denial. He made excuses, was defensive and seemed to be pretending things were actually going very well at Town despite the fact we’ve just been relegated and had a manager walk out because things were such a mess behind the scenes. Baffling. 

Mark Cartwright: “I had no influence over a lot of things that happened last summer” 

In this interview Mark Cartwright tried to wash his hands of last summer and the terrible transfer window that set us up so poorly for the season. In fairness, he did arrive in July, so was thrown into the deep end a little bit. However, he was in place during the most key part of the season and was talking himself up as soon as he arrived. Because I’m a pedant, I went back and checked what he said during his first club interview: “Are we going to utilise my little black book and see if we can find something?… Absolutely.” Doesn’t exactly sound like someone who has nothing to do with the transfers coming in. 

“We’re in a better place than we were last year”

Another daft thing that Mark Cartwright came out with was that he believes that Huddersfield Town are in a better place now than they were this time last year. He at least acknowledged that this statement sounded moronic so showed some self-awareness. While Cartwright went on to clarify that he was referring to things like the environment, having the right people in the right places and the infrastructure, I would add that this statement was even more moronic when you consider that Andre Breitenreiter’s recent comments suggested the club was rotten from top to bottom, not just in the dressing room. He wasn’t singling out the players, he felt pretty much everything needed a fundamental review. And he wasn’t pulled up for talking out of turn with these remarks, the club desperately wanted to keep hold of Breitenreiter and allow him to oversee the refresh of the club. So even if you disregard the fact that League One is not a better place than the Championship, Cartwright seems to have a completely divergent view on the state of the club to Breitenreiter. I have no idea now which is the more accurate – though I know who I am more likely to believe. 

“There’s no point having a Ferrari if it’s got a Fiat engine”

This was a phrase that Cartwright used to describe how everything needs to be right behind the scenes as well as on the pitch. And I think he was trying to suggest that the club’s failure on the pitch should be overlooked because he’s doing great work behind the scenes. But we’ve just been relegated, so I don’t care if he’s just ordered a load of new exercise bikes off Amazon. 

(Car fans might also point out that Fiat and Ferrari have also a shared history but I’m not going to get into the weeds about how they could possibly be the same thing.)

I can’t understand how a Director of Football can show his face so soon after a relegation and try and pretend they have succeeded in their role when the club has so publically failed against their most visible measure of success – retaining their position in the league.

The squad “overhaul” may be more modest than expected 

The club have already announced their retained list which cleared out a load of fringe players that were out of contract but Mark Cartwright seemed to be downplaying any sort of exodus of bad characters in the main playing group. He talked about there being players that want to leave but those players will only go if Town’s valuation is met. 

Thinking back to our Premier League relegation, keeping hold of the overpaid dross that sent us down was a huge reason we struggled in our first season back in the Championship. I really hope we don’t cling on to too many players whose hearts aren’t in it.

Cartwright said he couldn’t promise a huge overhaul but he’s going to do an overhaul as much as he can. I can imagine this would have been the point in his discussion with Andre Breitenreiter that the German realised that he wasn’t going to hang around in Huddersfield. He’d said the squad needs fundamental changes and Cartwright seems to think it’s just a case of doing deals if the price is right.

He also made a strange comment about how every player in the squad thinks they’re a Championship player until the transfer window closes. Suggesting he believes every single player wants to leave, is hoping a better offer is on the way and isn’t committed to the club. Maybe that’s true but it’s a sad situation if it is. 

Mark Cartwright is still talking about front-foot attacking football

Darren Moore made his own mistakes that made him unpopular with fans, but one of the biggest sticks critical fans used to hit him with was the fact we were promised attacking football under him and he relied on a very negative, defensive approach to grind out results. The reason fans believed Moore should be playing attacking football was because Mark Cartwright promised it, despite the fact we didn’t have the squad to play that kind of football. We had a squad capable of playing Neil Warnock’s kick and rush, counter attacking football. So Darren Moore was set up to fail by Cartwright’s big talk in that first press conference.

Interestingly, Michael Duff even referenced Darren Moore’s miserable tactics when he faced us as Swansea manager this season, saying we played a 4-5-1 deep block and allowed them 80% possession. So he knows how bad the football has been at Town in recent months. 

So it came as a bit of a shock when Mark Cartwright repeated his mistake with Michael Duff when he said that the club still has a philosophy of front-foot, attacking football and Duff fits in with that. Where has he got this idea from? He might want us to be a front foot, attacking team, but we are not and haven’t been for a very long time. Michael Duff isn’t that kind of manager either, from what I can gather. His Barnsley team scored a lot of goals, but from a very solid, disciplined (biscuit) base. I don’t know if this is just waffle that Mark Cartwright says to sound good in meetings but I’d rather we were honest about what kind of team we are and had an identity that suited us, rather than trying to be a Poundland Man City.

At least Michal Duff seems to get it, when he talked about style of play, he referenced how he will sometimes want to play out from the back but other times will go long, depending on the opposition. The players will need to be able to do both. He also said that he wants to get in teams’ faces and attack but you earn the right to do that by being fit, strong and organised – which is a much more thought through way of approaching it than just making an idle wish to play attacking football. When Darren Moore set a weak Huddersfield Town team up to play attacking football we got trounced by our opponents and he was quickly scared into negative, dour football to cling on to results. Duff seems to have a better idea about how you earn the right to attack other teams. 

Some thoughts on Mark Cartwright’s strange comments

I’ve tried to hold back on Mark Cartwright’s job performance in the past, because I think it’s hard to make a judgement about a role that is pulling the strings at one step removed from the action on the pitch. However, with all these silly statements and excuses in this press conference it makes it hard to not vent. He’s just had to re-interview for his job, according to Kevin Nagle’s recent video diary, so most likely wanted to use this press conference to win over fans and give the impression that everything is going great after Andre Breitenreiter gave the impression that the club is a complete disaster zone. 

I’m currently in a pretty positive mood about the club and don’t like being negative about individuals, I’d rather point out the positives. But when people say moronic things, say they’re being moronic as they are saying them, it’s hard not to comment on just how moronic they sound too. Mark Cartwright might be right when he talks about all the great stuff he’s doing that isn’t seen, it could be that it’s all slowly building up and is about to come to fruition over the next season or two. I’d love that because if Mark Carwright is succeeding, it means the club is doing well too, and that’s what all Huddersfield Town fans want. For now though, he’s presided over two poor transfer windows, seen four permanent managers in charge of the club in less than a year, guided the club to relegation to League One and wound up the fans every time he’s spoken in public. 

Having said all that, Mark Cartwright has at least picked Michael Duff and that seems like a decent decision (as much as you can tell before a ball is kicked). He also made the decision quickly, giving the new man time to get his feet under the table and hopefully we can hit the ground running in the new season.