A new hope and familiar problems – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 3-1 friendly defeat to Emley

It’s an established fact of preseason friendlies that results don’t matter if you lose but are a very good sign if you win. So, working off that system, Town’s 3-1 defeat to Emley is meaningless other than it providing a good workout for the many, many players involved. Also, the scoreline is genuinely a bit misleading if you didn’t catch the game, as the three Emley goals all came in the final half an hour, when the first team had finished and the academy lads were given a run out. 

The fact the first team could only put one goal past Emley in the first hour of the game isn’t great but it’s nothing to be too worried about at this stage. With the players only being back in training a week, it’s unlikely this style of play is anywhere close to where Lee Grant wants to get this team. Regardless, there were some interesting things happening on the pitch which may give us an idea about the direction we’re heading.

The First Third 

Lineup: Nicholls, Sorensen, Eccleston, Feeney, Solomon, Kasumu, Wiles, Evans, Charles, Harness, Roosken

I don’t think this first lineup was our best eleven but just around half of the available first teamers with a couple of kids mixed in to make up the numbers. Unsurprisingly, the team did look quite disjointed and uncertain at times, particularly when on the ball in the final third. The old, familiar problem of struggling to break down a defense that’s sat deep returned. 

The formation was the first thing I focused on and it looked like a 4-2-3-1 system, with Charles the lone striker with Roosken, Wiles and Harness not far behind him. Evans and Kasumu made up the midfield pairing with a back four, going right to left, of Sorensen, Feeney, Solomon and Eccleston. 

On the positive side of things, I did notice how Charles wasn’t nearly as lonely as lone strikers often look in this shape. The wingers were tucked quite narrow, allowing space for the fullbacks to overlap and the wide players to be closer to goal. The midfielders also got forward regularly, with Wiles almost playing as another striker and Kasumu and Evans frequently getting in the box to support attacking play. 

It’s early days but I’d hope that Grant’s experience as Ipswich’s attacking coach will mean he has plenty of ideas about how to break down opponents that sit deep. There were only glimmers of this in this match but he’s only had a few days on the training pitch so far.

Off the ball it was hard to really judge Town, as they spent most of this opening third in possession. But there was an appetite to press high and hunt in packs, which is encouraging. Though this strategy is much easier against non-league opposition that aren’t nearly as comfortable on the ball as League One players. 

Highlights of this section of the game were the goal, obviously, which saw a lovely hip swiveling run from Roosken opened up the passing lane to get the ball to Feeney who had a tap in from close range. Staying with Feeney, he looked decent in this match both in terms of how comfortable he seemed on the ball and how he stood up to Emley’s big, awkward striker.

One non-footballing moment I enjoyed was the angry exchange between Sorensen and the Emley player that he thought had thumped him. After Sorensen picked himself up and play resumed he sought out his attacker and remonstrated using the sort of language that I try to avoid using on this blog. Unfortunately he was right in front of the microphone the club’s media team had set up.

The other key moment came earlier on when Wiles missed a pretty much open goal at around 12 minutes in. Maybe there was a bobble before the ball came to him but it was a bad connection with the ball and had it gone in, Town may have had an easier afternoon.

There were good things and less good things on display from the players, Harness, Feeney, Roosken and Kasumu all looked good. Harness carries himself like a player that knows what he’s doing. For a winger, he’s not lightning fast but he has a good touch and his movement off the ball created space for others and caused problems for Emley’s defence. Feeney looks like he’ll be decent too. And Roosken and Kasumu looked sharp. 

I don’t want to be too crtiical of players in their first friendly back after the summer but Evans still looks like he’s running through treacle. Maybe his toe injury is persisting or maybe he’s just a bit slow but either way, it was noticeable how spritely Kasumu’s running was compared to his more lethargic partner. Wiles buzzed around but didn’t make the kind of impact he needed to in the number ten role. And Charles struggled to get on the ball in dangerous areas, which isn’t all his fault but Emley didn’t seem too troubled by him either. Still, lots of time in preseason for these things to be worked out.

Second third

Lineup: Chapman, Spencer, Miller, ladapo, Sway, Kane, Ledson, Roughan, Ashia, Taylor, Togo

I was certain that Town moved to a three at the back shape for the second third but Steven Chicken, who was at the game, described it as another 4-2-3-1 with Spencer pushing up more on the right flank and the academy lad on the other side being more reserved. It doesn’t really matter though as the defence, again, had very little to do. 

I’m reluctant to go in too hard on Togo and Sway, who played in the defence but I think both are quite a long way from the standard we need and that limited our ability to play out from the back when in possession. Thankfully, Roughan looked excellent in this area of the game. He was classy, composed and creative at the back. OK, it’s only Emley, but the way he carries himself on the pitch and the way he plays makes me think we’ve signed a good one here. 

One of the academy kids that did impress me was young Ashia, who was a lively presence going forward and seemed to offer something a bit different on the ball. He’s been on the bench for the first team a few times, so he’s the closest to breaking in to the first team of all the youth players on display. A loan to League Two or an ambitious Conference team might just give him the extra dimension to his game that he needs to play at League One level. 

While there were no goals in this third of the game, Ledson went close with a header after Miller put in a lovely cross to the far post area. It’s also encouraging that Ledson was even in that area of the pitch when he was nominally a defensive midfielder in this set up. He was full of running and his passing looked sharp. Not much to go off but he stood out as one of our best players in this part of the game.

When we signed Herbie Kane last season he arrived in bad shape. Later in the season, Michael Duff talked about how he let himself go too much over the summer and that hampered the start to his career at Town. Thankfully, Kane seems to have used this off season to get himself into better shape and he looks as fit as a butcher’s dog. I don’t know what he’s changed, perhaps self-excluded himself from Marston’s, switched from gravy to lucozade in his water bottle, maybe even eaten a salad or two. Whatever it is, he’s clearly in better shape and Town should benefit from that. Though, in this game, the bumpy playing surface wasn’t suited to his silky passing style and a few passes missed their mark. He was still pretty decent though and is the player we rely on for creativity from deep areas. He also had a few decent shooting opportunities from the edge of the box that didn’t go in, so good that he got into those position but not great that they didn’t go in.

Joe Taylor’s outing was fairly similar to his previous performances at Town. He looks like he’s lightning fast and ready to get in behind defences but nobody else on the team was giving him those kinds of balls. Instead he was competing for headers against players much taller than him and running the channels, where he’s too far from the danger zone. But, like Kane, he’s come back from the break looking in better shape than when he left, so I’m expecting a big season from him.

There wasn’t a huge amount of goal-mouth activity in this third of the game. Taylor had a shot blocked the one time he was given decent service (a nice pass from Ledson) and there was a goalmouth scramble that the Town commentary team described as “absolutely brilliant” but looked to me like a mess of limbs like a school playground match played with a tennis ball. 

Like the first third, there were positives and negatives. Ashia, Miller, Ledson and Roughan were the standouts to me. Ladapo continues to look like someone who has only ever seen football on video games, with his movement being weird and awkward. He was playing mostly on the left and a bit deeper than a typical striker but it didn’t really matter as his touch was so bad he rarely got to make a second touch. Bashing Ladapo has been a cruel hobby for some last season, so I don’t like being so harsh but I can only describe what I saw from my perspective. Given he’s another year left on his Town deal and it’s unlikely any other club would take over his contract based on his Town performances, I really hope he turns it around. Lee Grant worked with him at Ipswich and got a tune out of him then, so maybe he’ll repeat the trick with us. Though it really would feel like a magic trick to turn him from his current form into a useful League One striker.

All in all, across the 60 minutes the first team played, it was a decent run out but not the kind of dominant display that usually comes when we take on opponents so far beneath us in the football pyramid. Partial credit should go to Emley for their spirited and organised defence but the expectation has to be that this will be our worst performance of preseason and there should be considerable improvement between now and the start of the season.

Third third 

Lineup: Hurl, Vost, Togo, Knowles, Solomon, Ashia, Thomas, Sabine, Idemudia, Murray, Sharrocks

While it’s the norm for players to be subbed on and off in preseason friendlies in vast numbers, it’s pretty rare for the manager to be subbed at 60 minutes but that’s what happened in this game. Lee Grant, presumably working himself up to being able to manage for a full 90, made way for Michael Tongue to take charge of the Terrier Pups for the closing half an hour. Obviously, I’m joking and Tongue is the one that knows these players and wanted them to get some experience against a men’s team.

Town lost this third of the game 3-0 to Emley and that fact alone would suggest our kids were played off the park. However, even in this phase of the game it was Town that played the nicest football. But nice football doesn’t always win games and Emley did a great job of exposing the inexperience of our academy kids and most likely brought some of them back down to earth.

The biggest issue was the organisation at the back, with the first two goals mostly being the result of the left side of the team disappearing somewhere else and allowing huge swathes of space to be counter-attacked by Emley. Their goals were good but even the ever positive Nathan Clarke was harsh on the youngsters while on co-commentary duty. Kaine Hall tried to suggest that these mistakes could be allowed given the age of the young Town team but Clarke was having none of that and quite rightly pointed out that they should have done better as a group.

Ashia and the right-back Bradley were the two most eye-catching performances from this spell. Though Ashia was noticeably better when surrounded by experienced pros in the middle 30 minutes than this closing third. 

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that I’ve heard rumours that the B Team has not had the level of investment needed to produce first-team ready players for a while. The quality of the players we’ve been picking up has dipped, understandably given the academy has expanded and had to fill up every age group. This short spell has given us the explanation for why we didn’t see more youngsters coming into the first team last season, as on this evidence the majority are nowhere near ready.

Other bits and bobs from the game

Here’s a bullet point list of observations that didn’t fit in the sections above:

• Bobby Madeley, the referee for this game, is a Town fan and we still didn’t get a penalty. Even though there weren’t any obvious penalty shouts, you’d think he’d give us one just to help us out.

• Why are Emley not called the Emley Mast-odons? Seems like an obvious nickname.

• We got our first glimpse of the new keeper shirt if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in. It looks like an orange highlighter pen. 

• We need to play better teams to practice pressing. Emley were very deep and couldn’t keep the ball. I’d guess Burnley and at least one of the Austria games will see us not have much of the ball, so we can work on our off-the-ball shape and pressing.

• Keeping the score over the three thirds is a bit odd as they’re really three separate games. So the result was really, 1-0, 0-0 and 3-0. We still lost on aggregate but each third was it’s own game and it makes more sense to view it that way.

• With Lee Grant being brand new to management, it wasn’t clear what his touchline attire would be. For this match he looked like he’d raided the club shop for his clothes. It was a scorching day, so a suit would have been an uncomfortable choice but it’ll be (mildly) interesting to see how he turns out for the Leyton Orient season opener. I prefer a suited and booted manager, don’t mind the tracksuit approach but I’m not so keen on the Next catalgue model look that has crept in over the last ten years or so.  

• One slightly more pertinent issue was the captaincy. In the first third it was Wiles and the second Ledson. I don’t see Wiles as being captain material to be honest, so that would make Ledson the front runner to be club captain. Murray Wallace and Joe Low may be candidates too though.

• I only half heard it, but did the Emley physio win £500 on the raffle? I was sure that was what the announcer said. I’d be deeply suspicious if this was the case. Though it would be fitting that Paul McShane’s first game as Town coach would feature a “Ted Bovis Raffle” (which means it was fixed for anyone that doesn’t recall sitcoms from 40 years ago).

• I think the HTTV coverage was pretty decent and justified the £6 fee. I liked the commentary team of Kaine Hall and Nathan Clarke even if Paul Ogden sets an impossibly high standard for others to follow. I particularly enjoyed Kaine Hall’s attempts to fill time with Nathan Clarke, the highlight coming when he asked Clarke if he ever received booklets during preseason with tactics on them. The momentary pause while Clarke tried to give a sensible answer was comedy gold. 

• Those who pay attention to these things may have noticed that a fair few players were missing from this game. Healey, Low, Wallace, Radulovic, and Balker didn’t feature. Low apparently has a knock, Balker is most likely still recovering from the ankle injury he picked up at the end of last season and Murray Wallace was signed with a foot injury (signing injured players has never gone badly in the past, so I’m sure this is fine!). Radulovic and Healey are less certain absentees. They could be injured or they could be in a “bomb squad” and won’t feature under Lee Grant. While Bojan has probably had enough chances at Town to know he’s not going to cut it, I’d be sad to see Rhys Healey go as he genuinely looks very good when he’s fit (even if those occasions have been rare in the last 18 months).