Terrier Spirit

Jan312021 by Terrier Spirit22 Comments

“His dip in form has plumbed new depths” – Player ratings for Huddersfield Town’s draw with Stoke

Matches

Huddersfield Town drew with Stoke yesterday despite playing against ten men for all of the second half. Familiar frustrations returned when Stoke sat deep and Town were unable to find a way through. Most fans would have been happy with a point before kickoff but the circumstances of the match make this feel like a defeat. After going ahead early then getting pinned back after a sloppy mistake led to a penalty, the red card incident should have given Town an advantage that made victory inevitable. Sadly we continue to struggle to break down unambitious but organised defences and that cost us once again. Here's what I thought of each player. Ryan Schofield - 6 out of 10 Hard to really give a rating as he had a very very quiet afternoon. Couldn't do anything to stop the penalt...

Jan302021 by Terrier Spirit8 Comments

5 questions that will be answered when Huddersfield Town play Stoke later today

Matches

Huddersfield Town take on Stoke this afternoon at the John Smith's Stadium and will be hoping to break their five-game losing streak and register their first points of 2021. Stoke present an intriguing challenge as their recent form isn't great but they've got some quality players in their squad. The previous meeting, earlier this season ended in a 4-3 defeat for Town in an entertaining but infuriating encounter at the Bet 365 Stadium. Here are five questions that will be answered this afternoon… Will Carlos play the same starting eleven? My opinion is that we'll see an unchanged lineup today. That's why I'm writing a more general match preview rather than a post dedicated exclusively to predicting the team. Duane Holmes is likely to make the bench bu...

Jan272021 by Terrier Spirit8 Comments

“Amateur defending” – Player ratings for Town’s 2-1 defeat to Bristol City

Matches

Town were beaten by Bristol despite an excellent second half display due to a pair of soft goals in the first half that gave our opponents an insurmountable lead. It was a game that was equally frustrating and promising as Town showed many of the consistent themes of this season, such as conceding sloppy goals, failing to finish chances and, on a more positive note, attacking, exciting football. Here are my player ratings. Ryan Schofield - 5 out of 10 I might be being a bit harsh but I thought he committed too early for the opener and made it too easy for the Bristol player to ease past him and finish into an open net. The second wasn't one he could so much about as it was a nice finish. The goals were the only shots on target for Bristol so he didn't make any other saves but did come o...

Jan262021 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

Predicted Huddersfiedl Town XI to take on Bristol City – This time I might even be right!

Matches

I've made no secret in the past of how my predicted Town lineups are often wide of the mark. Despite my best efforts it's not easy to know what Carlos is thinking when it comes to team selection. However, for tonight's game I genuinely think I might be able to accurately predict the whole starting eleven. In fairness, this is more due to the fact we've only got around eleven experienced players in the squad at the moment and Carlos has shown a reluctance to play youngsters from the academy when there's a first team player available, regardless of their form. So here's who I think we'll see playing for Town tonight. Goalkeeper: Schofield Couldn’t be blamed for Scott Malone's curling finish last Wednesday. No Town fan expected Malone to be capable of such an assured finish after his largely ...

Jan202021 by Terrier Spirit11 Comments

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Millwall

Matches

Huddersfield Town host Millwall tonight and will be hoping this game will be a chance to stop our three-game losing streak. Having beaten Millwall once already and the Lions currently being on a poor run of form themselves, this game isn't as daunting for Town as it might have looked when the fixtures came out. Carlos Corberán was forced to field a weakened team against Watford at the weekend due to a glut of injuries but the arrival of Richard Keogh and others returning from injury mean we've a few more options available this evening. Here's my predicted lineup… Goalkeeper: Schofield After his blunder at the weekend, he'll be hoping for an uneventful evening tonight. I'm confident that he'll have learned from his mistake and any dodgy looking back pass will go directly to Row Z withou...

Jan182021 by Terrier Spirit9 Comments

The mistake, the assault, tedious tactics, murderball, commentary and transfer rumours – Notes on Watford away

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-0 by Watford on Saturday in a game that turned on a silly mistake by Ryan Schofield. The opener came at an unfortunate moment in the game and gave Town a mountain to climb against a Watford team full of quality players. It’s one of those games that you can find negatives or positives, depending on your disposition. Some fans will despair at Town’s lack of attacking threat and inability to put pressure on the Watford goal. Other fans, the dangerously optimistic ones, would point to how Town mostly held their own against one of the league's strongest teams despite having to field a team full of untested backup players. The mistake This was a game that was light on incident or drama, so the first thing to talk about is Schofield’s nightmare moment wh...

Jan172021 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

“Too sloppy” – Huddersfield Town player ratings following their 2-0 defeat to Watford

Matches

Huddersfield Town were beaten by a better opponent in yesterday’s game but it’s hard not to come away from the match wondering what might have happened. What if Deeney had been sent off in the first half? What if Schofield hadn’t misread Vallejo’s backpass? What if we had decent, experienced players on the bench to bring on when we fell behind? We’ll never know. So instead we’ve just got to mull over this defeat and put it behind us before we entertain Millwall on Wednesday night. Here are my player ratings. Ryan Schofield - 3 out of 10 There’s no nice way of saying it, his error cost us the game. I don’t think there’s a lot of benefit in finger pointing or shaming players for mistakes, it’s something to learn from and move on. He completely misjudged the pace of the ball, the speed of...

Jan162021 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

Immediate thoughts on Huddersfield Town’s 2-0 defeat to Watford

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-0 by Watford in a game that will be remembered for a Ryan Schofield lapse of concentration, a red card incident that wasn’t for Troy Deeney and little else. Town fielded an inexperienced and young side and made a good job of containing Watford in the first half and were following a similar path in the second half until Schofield’s moment to forget. After that it was a fairly straight forward victory for Watford who were obviously the better team on the day. Here are a few of my immediate thoughts on the game in bullet point form, a more in depth look at the game will follow tomorrow. Schofield’s mistake turned the game away from Town but he deserves some slack after his saves have already won us points this season (most notably in the game we won aga...

Jan162021 by Terrier Spirit23 Comments

Decimated by injuries – Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Watford

Matches

Huddersfield Town play Watford later today at Vicarage Road. After resting the first team last weekend it was hoped they would all be fully fit and fresh but a glut of injuries means we're going to be relying on our backup players to fill in the gaps. this afternoon So despite beating Watford only a few weeks ago on home turf, it's hard to be optimistic going into this game. We're really relying on the new faces coming into today's team doing as well or better than the players they replace, which seems like a big ask based on what we've seen from the fringe players when they've been given a chance. Watford managers have roughly the same shelf life as fairground goldfish, so it's not surprise they've a new manager for this game. I'm not going to bother learning anything about this one as ...

Jan102021 by Terrier Spirit22 Comments

Player write ups after HTAFC’s FA Cup defeat to Plymouth and why I’m not giving player ratings out of 10

Matches

Huddersfield Town made eleven changes to their starting lineup and a youthful Terriers team fell to a 3-2 defeat against an almost full-strength Plymouth. While there’s a debate to be had about the wisdom of fielding such a weakened team and another about the true value of the FA Cup to teams like Town, I enjoyed the match and was pleased to see our academy lads given a chance. I usually give player ratings after Town games but I’ve decided to step away from that tradition for this particular game. It doesn’t feel fair to pass judgement on yesterday’s Town team with it featuring so many players at the start of their careers. Instead I’m going to just write a few sentences to summarise each player’s performance and I’ll leave the numbers out even though I’ll try and give a balanced summary...