Terrier Spirit

Aug42018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Five thoughts about Town’s 3-0 victory over RB Leipzig

Matches

Town turned in an impressive performance in their final friendly of preseason, beating RB Leipzig 3-0. Admittedly, our opposition had played a Europa League qualifier the night before and fielded a somewhat weakened team.But they still had Germany and Denmark’s first choice strikers from the World Cup up front, and a few multimillion Euro signings in their starting line up. Here are a few of my thoughts about the game… The 3-5-2 system worked well in its first outing of preseason This was the first time I’ve seen Town play with three central defenders for any length of time this preseason. It was a similar shape to the way we lined up towards the end of last season, and the system worked well. Everyone stuck to their task and there was no space for RB Leipzig to exploit. Zanka, Sch...

Aug32018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

2018/19 SQUAD REPORT – Goalkeepers at Huddersfield Town

Matches

In advance of the Premier League season starting next week, I thought I'd do a series of blogposts taking a look at Huddersfield Town's squad. This first post will look at the goalkeeping options in the club. Then it'll be defenders, midfielders, and finally attackers. Jonas Lössl When you consider Danny Ward went to Leicester for £12m it's stunning that we managed to buy Lössl for around £2.5m, given most Town fans wouldn't be willing to swap Lössl for Ward. The big Dane arrived at Huddersfield Town last summer with a reputation of being a liability, with the Examiner podcast saying he'd been descibed as "the worst goalkeeper in the Bundesliga", yet he had a fine first year at Town. There were a few occasions were errors led to conceding goals, but these moments were far outweighed b...

Aug12018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Five things I noticed in Town’s 2-1 win over Bologna

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town scored in the last second of their friendly with Bologna to win the game 2-1. It was a fairly tepid encounter but there were some glimpses of decent football and I think the team look close to being ready for the start of the season. Here are a few things I noticed from the game... Sobhi showed his strength Ramadan Sobhi is incredibly strong on the ball for a winger. There were a few occasions where a Bologna defender tried to musle him off the ball and he just swatted them away. His close control looked very good, and he looked surprisingly speedy when chasing down balls. I wasn’t all that impressed with Ramadan in the Lyon friendly, but saw plenty to like about him in this game. The real test will obviously come in the Premier League, but the signs are there tha...

Jul312018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

5 reasons to believe Huddersfield Town will stay up this season

Opinion

A ball hasn’t yet been kicked in the 2018/19 Premier League season and Huddersfield Town have already been written off by many, including the bookies. You can’t blame them really given Town's lowly status, but I still think they’re wrong. Here are five good reasons Town could do better than expected this season. We’ve got David Wagner I genuinely wouldn’t swap Wagner for any other manager in the world right now. There might be better managers out there, but there aren't any better managers for Huddersfield Town. The way he’s turned the club’s fortunes around is incredible and I feel like he’s not yet finished the job yet with Town. He’s consistently managed to overcome expectations and he may just do the same again this coming season. I think David Wagner will perform even better i...

Jul302018 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

What’s going to happen to the four players that didn’t go on the Austria training camp?

Opinion, Transfers

The bulk of Town’s first-team squad are currently in Austria on a preseason training camp, but four members of the squad seem to have been left behind. I’ve not been able to find any official confirmation about why they didn’t make it onto the plane, so it’s possible they’ve stayed behind to arrange transfers away from Town. Here’s a quick look at some players that aren’t in any of the clubs’ videos and pictures from Austria and some thoughts on what lies in their future... Scott Malone Malone played in last week’s friendly win against Lyon and did a relatively decent job at left-back. There’s been no mention of injury, so his omission from the team suggests he may be looking to arrange a move. He had a patchy first season at Town, looking quick and dangerous as an attacking wingba...

Jul292018 by Terrier Spirit5 Comments

Would you want any of this ex-Huddersfield Town XI back at Town?

Opinion

It feels like forever since Town’s first Premier League season ended in survival and there are still two weeks to go until the season starts. To try and reduce the boredom, I've picked a team of ex-Huddersfield Town players that are still playing, to see if the players we’ve let go could form a decent team. While I think Town’s current squad would wipe the floor with this ex-players XI, there are a few players in here that I’d happily see back at Town. Particularly Chilwell, Pilkington, and Drinkwater. GK: Alex Smithies I was delighted to see Cardiff snap up Smithies from QPR this summer. I’ll give him a warm welcome back to the John Smith’s Stadium when they play us in August. He was a great servant to the club and was perhaps a bit unlucky to be sold before the David Wagner era....

Jul272018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

Have Huddersfield Town too many foreign players for the Premier League rules?

News, Player profiles, Transfers

Most Town fans will have noticed that our current squad has a far more cosmopolitan feel to it these days. One of the reasons we’ve achieved so much in recent seasons has been our ability to pick up players from abroad at a fraction of the cost their English equivalent would be valued at. Has delving into foreign markets left Town in a position where they could fall foul of the Premier League’s rules about homegrown players? Could Town be forced into naming a smaller squad than they could because of the lack of homegrown players on our books? If you can’t be bothered reading the whole article, the quick answer is that our current squad is almost perfectly balanced between homegrown and non-homegrown players, but any transfers could muck this up and mean we have to move players on. W...

Jul262018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Huddersfield Town 3-1 Lyon – Second half player ratings

Matches

Huddersfield Town fielded two almost completely different lineups in their 3-1 victory against Lyon, so I’ve broken the player ratings up into two articles. Here’s my run down of the player ratings for the team that played in the second half. It's trickier to give an accurate assessment of the second half performances, as Lyon made a sequence of substitutions that completely unsettled the game. Town were actually fairly poor for the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the half, but after the substitutions we enjoyed our most dominant spell of the game. Was this because Town improved or Lyon got worse? It's hard to say. Ben Hamer - 8 out of 10 Deserved his man of the match award for his performance. In the second half he pulled off an incredible save, low down in the bottom corner. It l...

Jul262018 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Huddersfield Town 3-1 Lyon – First half player ratings

Matches

Huddersfield Town beat Lyon 3-1 in an encouraging performance at the John Smith’s Stadium. Ben Hamer was the only player to play for all 90 minutes, so I’ve decided to break the player ratings articles into two. This one looks at the players that featured in the first half. Ben Hamer - 8 out of 10 Looked very good in the first half and kept Town in the game with a couple of excellent saves. Came off his line well when Lyon had broken through our defensive line. His distribution looked good to me too, trying to pick out players rather than just launch it down the field. Florent Hadergjonaj - 7 out of 10 Was busy up and down the right flank, and linked up well with Diakhaby a couple of times. His crossing was mixed, a couple of loose ones but at least two excellent crosses nearly lead to...

Jul252018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

5 things Town fans can find out in tonight’s game against Lyon

Matches

Huddersfield Town play their only home friendly of this preseason tonight, when they play Olympique Lyonnais at the John Smith’s Stadium. It’s a chance to watch Town take on Champions League quality opposition, which should be an interesting test, but means it may be tricky for Town to turn around the poor form we’ve experienced this preseason. Here are a few questions fans can hope to have answered after today’s game. Are we going to see our best XI start the game? The friendlies in the early stages of preseason are mostly aimed at raising fitness levels and the team selections are based around getting all the squad’s players to get a chance to play. It’s a bit like the way an under-8s football team is picked. Now the majority of the squad have played 90 minutes it may be the focu...