Terrier Spirit

Jan62019 by Terrier Spirit3 Comments

Bristol City dump Huddersfield Town out of the cup and expose how badly things are going wrong for Town

Matches

The FA Cup could have provided Huddersfield Town with a welcome diversion from their troubles in the Premier League. Playing a team in a lower division should have allowed an opportunity to express our footballing philosophy and maybe even score a few goals. The sad truth is that the game at Bristol just highlighted the problems Town have at the moment. Confidence is through the floor, our attacks are predictable and our defence shaky. Despite Jason Puncheon and Jon Stankovic receiving praise from Wagner after the match, I don’t think a single Huddersfield Town player came out of this game with any credit. The fringe players were universally poor David Wagner likes to shake his team up for cup competitions, so it’s a chance for players on the edge of the squad to stake a claim for a p...

Jan52019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to face Bristol City – Wagner set to rotate his team

Matches

Huddersfield Town head into the third round of the FA Cup against Bristol City, hoping that a decent cup run might offer some relief from their torrid league form. David Wagner made it clear in this pre-match comments that he'll field a team he believes is strong enough to win, but he'll also be likely to give some of the fringe players a chance. Here's what I think Wagner will do with the team tomorrow... Goalkeeper - Ben Hamer This isn't in any doubt, as David Wagner confirmed that Hamer will be given a chance in this match. Despite starting the season as first choice, Hamer's opportunities have been limited after a couple of shaky games. Left back - Chris Löwe The German is the most obvious choice in the left flank, as Kongolo is likely to be pushed in field to cover Schi...

Jan42019 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

Burnley extend Huddersfield Town’s misery – What next for the terriers?

Matches

Huddersfield Town lost by two goals to one in a match that was spoilt by Christopher Schindler’s red card in the first half. Until that point the Terriers had shown some promise, creating chances and committing players forward when we attacked. The defeat leaves Town eight points from safety and makes relegation feel almost certain, despite there being 17 games left to play. The points gap is big, but the gulf in quality between Town and rest of the league seems even bigger as Town extend their losing streak to eight games. The Schindler red card I don’t have any complaints about the decisions to award yellow cards for the two reckless challenges Schindler committed, but I do have a problem with the way the first card was handed out. From the stands it wasn’t clear whether Mike Dea...

Dec292018 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

Huddersfield Town stare into the abyss after defeat to Fulham

Matches

“And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche Huddersfield Town’s defeat to Fulham leaves them planted at the bottom of the Premier League, five points from safety and stretches our losing streak to seven games. It was a cruel, but not unpredictable, blow when Mitrovic scored the 91st-minute winner at Craven Cottage. Of all the defeats Town have suffered this season, and there’s plenty to pick from, this feels like the most sickening. It was a game we could have taken something from if we’d have shown a bit of ambition, but familiar problems led to a tepid display that a relatively poor Fulham team were able to exploit. Negative tactics and selection I my last post I congratulated David Wagner’s bold decisions for our Boxing D...

Dec282018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Defeat at Man United, preview of Fulham, and a transfer rumour roundup

Matches, Opinion, Transfers

I’m a bit pushed for time, so this is going to be a lightning quick post about Town’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester United, a brief preview of the Fulham game, and some of the transfer rumours I've heard about that involve Town. Enjoy! Some random thoughts about Manchester United 3-1 Huddersfield Town Normally I’d flesh these ideas out into full, semi-coherent paragraphs, but here are the bullet points: The atmosphere at Old Trafford is abysmal. Town fans did an excellent job of out singing the rest of the stadium. I guess they call it “The Theatre of Dreams” because you can have a nap in peace for 85 minutes of every game. On a similar note, when the board went up to announce the injury time the stadium was half-empty. The people in the home end weren’t really Manchester United “fans...

Dec242018 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

Huddersfield Town 1-3 Southampton – 7 thoughts on Town’s dismal defeat

Matches, Opinion

Watching Town lose isn’t a new experience this season but our 3-1 defeat to Southampton was hard to take. It was arguably Town’s worst performance of the season and we allowed a relegation rival to put breathing space between us and them. Here are a few of my thoughts following a bad day at the office for Town. Playing two strikers showed signs of promise but didn’t quite come off Town started the game in a slightly altered formation. We still had three central defenders, with wingbacks providing some width. Billing and Bacuna were paired in defensive midfield, with Pritchard slightly further forward behind a front line of Mounié and Mbenza. The combination of Mbenza’s pace and Mounié’s ability in the air has potential to be a successful partnership, but it didn’t quite work on Sat...

Nov12018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Huddersfield Town’s past three Novembers… and why we need to break the trend

Opinion

It's not true to say Huddersfield Town have a “November curse”, but Town have endured poor results in all three Novembers that David Wagner has taken charge. With Town starting November 2018 at the bottom of the Premier League it’s going to be vital that he overturns this strange record of struggling as the nights start to draw in. As it stands Huddersfield Town have a November record of played ten, won one, drawn one, lost eight in the David Wagner era. Here’s a look at how the last three Novembers have played out for Town... A battling victory followed by three defeats - 2017/18 season Last November Town won their first game of the month against West Brom, in a game where Town dominated until Christopher Schindler was sent off for a second booking. There was then a backs-to-the-wall...

Oct272018 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

Watford 3-0 Huddersfield – Player ratings after a dismal defeat

Matches, Opinion

After a series of promising performances without a win to show from them, Huddersfield Town hoped something would change against Watford. Sadly it did, rather than playing well and losing we changed to playing poorly and losing. Most of our recent defeats have had a "What if..." feeling to them, where we've blamed our bad luck, bad referees, and too much paint on the goalposts denying Town. Against Watford we just weren't good enough. There were brief flashes of promise, but generally it was a poor performance, and too many players had bad games. Here's exactly what I thought of each of Town's players... Jonas Lössl - 5 out of 10 Couldn’t do much about the first goal, but may feel like he should have saved the second, which was fired in from a tight angle. A last ditch clearance avoid...

Oct152018 by Terrier Spirit3 Comments

Three reasons to believe Huddersfield Town’s season is about to turn around

Opinion

Town managed to come away from Burnley with a point last weekend, which was far better than most hoped for before the game. However, it felt like an opportunity missed rather than a valuable away point, given how well Town performed and the chances we spurned. This was a feeling that we've become used to this season as Town fans. The performances in general haven’t been nearly as bad as the results suggest. You could take this as a cause for optimism or concern, depending on your outlook. It’s a positive that the performance levels are decent and surely our luck will soon turn. Alternatively, we can’t win games even when we play well, so what chance do we have? I’m an eternal optimist when it comes to Town, so here are some of the reasons I think we’re getting close to the end of our...

Sep242018 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

The 3 basic mistakes that led to Huddersfield Town’s 3-1 defeat to Leicester

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town were defeated 3-1 by Leicester City, in a match that Town were punished for a series of silly mistakes. While we also spurned good opportunities at the other end, I’ll remember this game for how easily we let our opponents score against us. Here are my thoughts on the individual errors that led to the goals... Erik Durm has a rush of blood to the head Leicester first goal was the sort that you don’t see many teams concede. Town had a corner but contrived to turn our advantage to Leicester having three players running clear through on our goal. There were a few people you could point the finger at for this goal, but the biggest error came from Erik Durm. He was one of the players hanging back to defend against the counter, and left his post to intercept a loose bal...