Carlos Corberán spoke with the press yesterday to answer questions about tomorrow’s game against Brentford.
Below are the main things that he revealed with his answers and a few of my thoughts about what he said.
Danny Ward’s injury and the lack of strikers
Danny Ward’s hamstring is still knacked, he’s having a scan on it next week. I’ve no idea why he hasn’t had one this week, seeing as he had this issue before the Norwich game.
It doesn’t sound like a bad injury but the fact it’s not cleared up in a week suggests it could be worse than initially expected. With Town’s only other senior striker only just coming back from injury it leaves us very short up top.
Will Town try to speed through transfer business to help with the striker issue? Carlos doesn’t want to rush into signings and is keen to bring in players that can cover a variety of positions so the squad is stronger. I think he was hinting at the possibility we might bring in a winger that can play centrally rather than an out and out striker.
Do Town need another striker?
Carlos said the plan was previously to have Ward and Campbell as our main striking options. He also talked about how other players can fill in this position too, as Koroma did last weekend.
For whatever reason, Corberán didn’t seem to want to say outright that he needs another striker. This could be because he doesn’t want to sound desperate and influence ongoing negotiations. Or maybe he doesn’t want to upset the transfer committee by publicly saying his squad isn’t good enough. It’s odd though, because any Town fan would immediately say that it’s obvious we need another striker.
Lewis O’Brien is still injured
O’Brien isn’t ready yet, he’s still in the final stages of his recovery. Which means he’s also not training fully yet either, so it’s going to be a little while before he’s up to speed and ready to play in matches.
I’m looking forward to seeing how O’Brien gets on with the Corberán style of football so will be glad when he does get fully fit. However, it could be this injury helps fend off interest from other clubs and improves our chances of keeping him at the club for now.
Naby Sarr’s Alan Partridge lifestyle
We’ve known since last weekend that Naby Sarr has to quarantine for two weeks. It was only yesterday we were told that the poor lad is holed up in a hotel on his own. On top of that he’s got to follow a fitness regime inside his hotel room.
This seems really odd to me. I can’t see why the club couldn’t find him a house with a gym or at least a garden where he can exercise. Is this penny pinching or am I missing something obvious? Surely it can’t be that hard to get on AirBnB and book him into an empty house for a fortnight.
Carlos’ thoughts on Brentford
Carlos says that having the same manager and a settled squad helps them and the fact they have a single vision throughout the club is something every club aspires to.
The language Carlos used to describe Brentford was consistent with the way Bromby and Devlin spoke around the time of Carlos’ appointment about Town’s ambitions. No surprise really as its clear Brentford are the template we’re currently trying to emulate.
Corberán said that Brentford are one of the league’s stronger squads and deservedly reached the playoff final last season. While they’re a strong opponent, he said we’re going to concentrate on our own game.
If Carlos follows through on his promise it will be vastly different to Danny Cowley’s tactics that beat Brentford last season, where we went negative and used a game plan that negated their biggest threats. It wasn’t pretty but was one of the Cowley brothers biggest tactical achievements at Town.
Transfer updates
Understandably, Carlos kept his cards close to his chest when quizzed about comings and goings from the club. Here’s a quick summary of what he said:
Grant – nothing has changed since last weekend.
Eiting – I don’t like to comment on other team’s players.
Kongolo – Not training with the main group and he may have options to leave the club.
How do you get the best out of Alex Pritchard?
This was an interesting question and Carlos was relatively open in his answer. He said that Pritchard has underperformed at Town because injuries have stopped him from training consistently and that’s stopped him producing his best.
It sounds like the knee issue that dogged Pritchard last season isn’t fully gone away but Corberán confirmed that he is now involved fully in all the training sessions.
I sincerely hope this is true and Pritchard keeps himself fit. Then we may see him being able to influence games more and create opportunities for himself and his colleagues to score some goals.
Is Bacuna frustrating to watch at times?
Bafflingly, Carlos said he wasn’t frustrated by any of his players last weekend. This is hard to square with the fact he had a little paddy on the touchline when Bacuna was wasteful in possession. His general demeanor moved between irked to livid on the sidelines throughout the game but rarely could you say he looked happy.
I like Carlos Corberán, the passion he clearly has and the ambition of what he’s trying to do at Town but his response to this question seems a tad disingenuous. I suppose he doesn’t want to publicly criticise one of his players but it’s hard to take his answer seriously when it’s so divorced from the evidence we all saw on iFollow last weekend.
It’s blatantly clear that Town have no intention of signing a proven goal scoring striker. With the signing ofa ball a playing central defender in Nabby Saar and another attacking wing back in Pippa, he’s obviously planning for a 3-5-2 in some of the matches. If that proves to be the case, then to play Koroma off Campbell for me is certainly one solution for a front two pairing. Comments please.
Leigh Bromby was quite adamant we would play 4-3-3 at every level of the club for the long term, so I doubt we’ll switch to 3-5-2 unless the plan has changed.
But Carlos’ version of 4-3-3 looks like three at the back in possession because the fullbacks push up and the defensive midfielder drops deep.
Campbell and Koroma sounds like a good pairing to me. I’d rather see Koroma out wide than in the middle but he looks capable of playing either way.
I was merely referring to a 3-5-2 in some of the matches, They’ll probably start off with the 4-3-3 in all of the matches, and just switch it against selected opponents.
Ah, I see. I find it hard to work out the formation watching on iFollow because you don’t get the broad view available when you’re there in person.
I hope we are flexible about the shape we use on games because it can be a bit one dimensional to play the same tactics regardless of what’s going on in the game. That was one of my problems with Siewert when he was manager.
Absolutely, I totally agree. There’s one thing for sure, whichever system he does adopt as we progress through the season, they’ll need to find a way of scoring goals across the entire team, and particularly without a recognised central striker.
Grant is a town player until he is transferred which could be months away why not play him it is not good for him not to keep match fit and if he played he would be on show especially if he scored a few goals .its a bad decision both for player and Huddersfield town common sense should prevail.
I think the fear is that he could break his ankle in a nasty challenge and the multi-million pound deal would go down the toilet. Leaving players out is usually a sign a deal is very close to completing but for whatever reason we can’t seem to get over the line with it.