Are Huddersfield Town already over the limit of League One’s squad size rules?

Following Huddersfield Town’s relegation, they will now have to submit to League One’s rules about squad sizes, meaning they will need to name a squad with a maximum of 22 players. This doesn’t sound very many, and looking at the players still under contract on Town’s retained list, we’ve well over this number – 28 in fact. Should we be panicking and having a fire sale of players? Obviously not, particularly as there will be plenty of comings and goings before the end of the season and not all of those 28 players are included in the 22-player limit. 

But I thought it would be interesting to take a look at League One’s squad size rules in detail and see how they might affect Huddersfield Town. I suspect they may have an impact on decision-making for transfers, loans and contracts – particularly when you get into the weeds about the finer details. It’s a long time until there’s going to be any competitive Huddersfield Town football to talk about, so I’ve got to keep myself (and hopefully a few other fans) entertained somehow!

What are the rules on squad sizes in League One?

As I mentioned above, the headline figure is that you have to have a squad of 22 players. But there are a couple of exceptions that don’t need to be included inside your core group of 22, so it’s not quite as restrictive as you might think.

The following don’t have to be included in your squad of 22 players:

• Goalkeepers (regardless of age)
• Any players under 21 years old at the start of the calendar year

So that would immediately exclude quite a few of the list in Huddersfield Town’s full squad list. 

Obviously the composition of every team’s squad can change right up until the transfer window closes (or slams shut, if you’re a Sky Sports News viewer), so these squad lists don’t need to be submitted to the league until the end of the transfer window at the start of September.

Does Huddersfield Town’s current squad fit within the rules?

I’m going to work off the list of senior players the club used in their retained list to see if we have too big a squad for the upcoming League One season as it stands – obviously a lot is going to change between now and August, but it will gives us an idea about how much churn we might expect.

Here’s a list of the current squad with notes next to those that don’t count towards the 22-man squad of outfield players.

• Michał Helik
• Sorba Thomas
• Lee Nicholls – Goalkeeper
• Matty Pearson
• Jack Rudoni
• Tom Lees
• Josh Koroma
• David Kasumu
• Ben Wiles
• Brodie Spencer – Under 21 at the start of the year
• Jaheim Headley
• Ben Jackson
• Danny Ward
• Chris Maxwell – Goalkeeper
• Josh Ruffels
• Kian Harratt
• Rhys Healey
• Radinio Balker
• Bojan Radulovic
• Kyle Hudlin
• Patrick Jones – Under 21 at the start of the year
• Ollie Turton
• Loick Ayina – Under 21 at the start of the year
• Josh Austerfield
• Jacob Chapman – Goalkeeper
• Tom Iorpenda – Under 21 at the start of the year   
• Scott High
• Tyreece Simpson

So of the 28 listed players in the senior squad, three of them are goalies, so don’t count in the squad numbers and four of them were 21 or under at the start of the year. This leaves us with 21 over-age, outfield players that will want a squad place out of 22 slots. Before we’ve made a single signing. So straight away there’s an obvious issue with squad bloat as we’ve only space for one additional new recruit unless we move some of these contracted players out.

Mark Cartwright talked in Michael Duff’s opening press conference about hoping to sign two or three players early in the window before getting to the one-in-one-out stage. So it seems likely that at least three or four of the current squad are earmarked as not being good enough for next season, reading between the lines.

Which players might not make it into the squad?

My feeling is that a team that wants to be competing at the top end of League One probably needs to have similar quality levels to one that was bumping along at the bottom of the Championship, if not better. So players that were deemed not good enough last season should be viewed with skepticism this season too. Which means the likes of Scott High, Kyle Hudlin and Tyreece Simpson may find themselves shipped out, either on loan or permanently, as I’m struggling to imagine any of them making an impact on our first team in the coming season. This will free up space in the squad for the much-needed new recruits.

Loick Ayina was out on loan last season but I think he’s different to the other three I mentioned as he’s a young player that’s still improving and can make an impact – not to mention that his age means he doesn’t take up a slot in the squad numbers either.  

How will these squad rules affect Huddersfield Town’s transfer strategy?

Assuming Town don’t plan to pay players to languish in the reserves, they will have to be mindful of these rules and make sure they avoid going into the season with a bloated squad with players they can’t field in competitive games. 

These rules are probably the worst news for those players that are on the fringes and might have been kept around as backup but instead will be cleared out to free up a squad slot for new signings.

It may also mean Town specifically target younger players when they are doing business, like Premier League loanees who won’t count towards the limit. 

Town may also be more reluctant to let academy players out on loan this season due to these rules, as these youngsters may be needed to fill in gaps if injuries strike and to step up in the Bristol Street Motors Cup, (which I either think is awful or brilliant, depending on whether we can get a trip to Wembley out of it). Town had 11 first team players injured at one point last season, if that happened again this coming season we’d struggle under these rules if our best youngsters were out on loan elsewhere.

Fit, strong and organised makes even more sense in light of these rules 

Michael Duff’s three non-negotiables for his teams are for them to be fit, strong and organised. If we are going to be limited to a relatively small squad and potentially playing a lot of games next season then we’ll need to be ready. Having a fit side will be important as a good season in the cups could see us playing 60ish games. 

Having a core group of players that are fit enough to consistently play twice a week, strong enough to not be regularly injured and organised enough that players can be rotated in and out of the system because everyone knows the different roles and what’s required of them. It makes a lot of sense in theory.

Why is there a lot of talk about playing more games in League One?

This could be another (admittedly dull) article on its own but League One teams tend to play more games than the Championship teams because of their involvement in various cup competitions.

This coming season Town will play the same 46 league games as they have been doing in the Championship. They also play in the League Cup, entering into the first round just like they did in the Championship.

One thing that changes will be how we enter the FA Cup, which will be in the first round proper rather than the third round. While that doesn’t guarantee more games, because the top two tiers don’t enter until the third round we have a better chance of making it through those earlier rounds. 

On top of all this we’ll have the Bristol Street Motors Cup, often referred to as Pizza Cup, but previously known as the Johnstone’s Paints Trophy, LDV Vans trophy, and the Autoglass Shield, among a host of other names. It’s a never-ending competition to decide the best team from the bottom two leagues and a handful of Premier League academies. As I alluded to above, it seems like a complete waste of time unless you get close to winning it, then it’s a day out to Wembley and some bulk to add to your trophy cabinet (though you’d put it at the back and hope nobody looked too closely at what it was). But in terms of extra games to squeeze into the schedule it involves a regional group stage before progressing to a knockout competition. So getting to the final, if I’ve added it up correctly, adds an extra eight games into the schedule. So all these extra cup games can add a lot of extra miles on the legs of players. While players at the top of the Premier League complain about playing too many games, a League One team that has a good run in the cups could easily play more games than Man City or Liverpool.