Battle of the HTAFCs – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 3-2 friendly win against Harrogate Town

Huddersfield Town notched up their third preseason victory on Saturday with a 3-2 victory over Harrogate Town in a friendly win that was far more one sided than the scoreline suggests. Town played some decent football and showed some glimmers of real quality and structure alongside the usual preseason clunkiness that you expect in these games. The positive afternoon’s work was marred by the late injury to Radinio Balker, who was stretchered off after going down awkwardly as he tidied up a loose ball. 

As we’ve seen in the previous two friendlies, there were wholesale changes to the team in this match, with a completely different eleven coming out in the second half. Hopefully we’ll soon see players going beyond 45 minutes in a game but in the time the players had on the pitch, I think the intensity was a little bit higher than at Guiseley last week and the tactical side of things looks to be coming along too. 

The first 45 minutes

The game got off to a dodgy start for Town, with Harrogate getting an early lead. It was a surprisingly good goal from Harrogate, after a stumble by Ayina coughed up to he ball in the wrong part of the field and a defence-splitting pass put their forward through and a shimmy then shot gave them the lead. While it was an error that led to us losing the ball, and decent play that made the most of the opportunity, it also highlighted how the way we’ve been pushing up the left and right central defenders in possession tends to leave a single defender at the back a lot of the time, which seems a bit of a weakness of this system. It looks like the way rugby teams leave a fullback down the pitch as the rest of the team pushes up in possession. 

Aside from this grumble about leaving Matty Pearson on his own a lot of the time, I do really like the look of Michael Duff’s 3-5-2 system that he’s been playing in the last two friendlies. The wingbacks provide width, the defenders carry the ball out of defence and join in midfield, the midfielders pull in to pockets to pull the other team out of shape, like going into the wide areas, or overlapping the strikers. And the strikers seem to be getting plenty of opportunities, mostly from cut backs from the byline or passes that result from that kind of play. It’s not free-flowing, because there’s a structure to the way we’re going about it but there’s room for creativity within the structure, if that’s not a contradiction. 

It was nice to see Town’s two starting strikers both score in the first half. The first being mostly thanks to Miller lashing the ball into the box when his corner came back out to him (blasting the ball into the penalty area seems to be his signature move) but Ward did well to get something on the ball and get it in the net. Ward was the provider for the second, with his good pressing forcing a loose pass for Healy to pounce on and apply a regulation finish. 

This game also gave us a bit more opportunity to see how Town defend in this system, after Guiseley and Emley failed to give us much of a challenge in that regard. While (Huddersfield) Town were the dominant team, (Harrogate) Town did have spells where they had the ball and we had to keep our shape and show some discipline. Town’s system worked best when we compressed the space and didn’t let Harrogate get out of their own half. Pressing high up the field and not giving them an easy pass meant they either had to attempt risky passes or boot it long if they wanted to progress up the pitch. Altternatively, they could tap it around the back but that was harmless to us and dangerous for them.

Another defensive frailty was revealed for Harrogate’s second goal, as a decent bit of play down the wings wasn’t dealt with and the low ball into the box found a runner that wasn’t picked up and that leveled the score. Nobody should lose sleep about conceding goals in friendlies but the marking at every stage of this goal wasn’t great. Tightening up and getting sharper will hopefully come naturally in the next few weeks before we play Peterborough.

All this focus on the tactics has meant I’ve barely spoken about the players from the first half, so to stop stretching this section out further, I’ll switch to bullet points:

• Mickel Miller was very involved, with some decent runs, a very dodgy tackle, plenty of crosses and taking corners for us too, despite Sorba Thomas being on the field. The corners were generally pretty decent but his crossing was a mixed bag. Some of them fizzed in to dangerous  areas at great speed and caused problems. Others were blasted hard and aimlessly without any threat because they didn’t go anywhere near a Town player. On balance, I liked the look of him and think it’ll be a difficult decision to pick between him and Headley for the starting left wingback berth given Headley’s doing well in preseason too.
• Herbie Kane looked brilliant when he had the time to show off his full range of passes. One cross field pass in particular picked out a run from Sorba that I’d not noticed. It looked like he’d just blasted the ball out of play but then Thomas charged on to the ball as it fell out of the sky and was suddenly in possession in a great area. He did get caught in possession too often though and seemed rusty, perhaps explained by the fact he’s not been involved in the last two friendlies like the rest of the squad. 
• Tom Iorpenda continued his very positive preseason. Commanding, tidy, busy, and comfortable on the ball. A few times he was given what used to be called hospital passes but he shrugged off the pressure and moved the ball on. One cross in particular stood out in my memory as being excellent. 
• Thomas looked a lot more at home in the right wingback position this week than he did as an attacking midfielder last weekend. The wingback role in this system seems to be quite an attacking-focussed position, so it plays to his skills well. We’re all expecting him to leave but if he doesn’t this would be the obvious position for him to play in, particularly in games where we expect to be attacking more than defending.
• Ayina looked OK for most of the game following his early slip in the build up to their first goal. His pace helped snuff out a breakaway that looked dangerous . I hope we see more of him in preseason as he may or may not be good enough to be in the squad for this season, so getting a better look at him should help answer that question.
• Ward and Healey both looked sharp up front, this could be our starting partnership if we don’t make further signings. While Ward continues to get stick from some fans, if he’s fit and fired up, I can see him being very useful when playing next to a goal-scoring strike partner like Healey.
• Hogg, Turton, Pearson and Nicholls are the players I’ve not singled out above, they were all fine. Pearson and Hogg both have similar roles of having to hold the spine of the team together in their areas of the pitch while others rove around them. I sense both find this new way of playing a bit stressful as they’re more exposed than usual but with more time playing like this everyone will learn their positions better and we’ll have better shape. Turton was a right-sided central defender but he played very aggressively in this position, stepping out of defence and joining the midfield at every opportunity and helping to build up play.  

The second 45 minutes

The second half of the game was a funny thing to watch. After a fairly well contested first half, where Huddersfield Town were the better team but both teams were having a go, the second half felt like it wasn’t much of a game. Despite the scoreline only being 1-0 for this period, I thought the balance of play was very one sided and Harrogate were noticeably diminished by the number of changes they made. 

While it’s good fun to joke about it being a “proud day for the Trialist family” Harrogate fielding five trialists in the second half meant that they were a disjointed and disorganised team. The home team actually only had 50% of their outfield players that belonged to them and the other half were playing for a contract. To make matters worse, one of the players was so tiny that he genuinely looked 14 years old and was mocked as you would see from the Town away end when he had to defend corners (though had a few nice touches in his defence). 

While Town played broadly the same 3-5-2 system in the second half, it was a bit wonkier than in the first half, as they had Sorensen as the proper right wingback and youngster, Neo Eccleston, as the right-sided centre back playing as basically another wingback who was marauding forward whenever he could. This very aggressive right side, meant that Josh Ruffels was a bit more conservative on his side of central defense and didn’t bomb forward with such abandon – though he still trotted down field a bit as that seems to be the instruction for everyone but the middle central defender (in this case Balker). 

I think Town missed the on-pitch organisers like Pearson and Hogg in the second half and we looked a bit more ragged at times. While Kasumu and Balker are good players in their positions, they aren’t the leaders and organisers that Hogg and Pearson are – which means that we didn’t always keep our shape as well as we could have done. Though, maybe rotating and moving freely isn’t such a bad thing when we’re up against a fairly limited team and we’re looking to create openings. 

There’s not much point going into too much depth about the criticisms of Town in the second half, as they were similar to the first half. We still looked vulnerable to breakaway attacks, particularly when we didn’t put pressure on the ball carrier and they could pick out a threaded ball to the forwards. We also were wasteful with the chances we created, which alongside conceding fairly soft goals, contributed to a scoreline that made it seem like a close game when it was actually very one sided.

I’ll go back to bullets to talk about the individual players on the pitch:

• Lasse Sorensen continues to look like a constant ball of energy up the right flank and he showed an appetite to get in the box and either score or provide the final pass before a shot in this game. He looks like a great signing. The goal he scored and the one he should have scored shows that he’s not shy of getting into goal-scoring positions.
• Jaheim Headley was also decent down the left side, though his set piece delivery wasn’t always great. He could, and perhaps should, have scored at least one when he latched on to a ball and shot wide with a hard strike. 
• Ben Wiles looks like a different player to the one we had last season. He’s more purposeful and seems to be making things happen with the ball when he gets on it. I doubt he’ll be preferred over Evans or Kane in the middle of the park but he’s looking like a good backup option. 
• Speaking of Antony Evans, he was very promising. Linking up nicely with Sorensen when he drifted wide, pressing high up to bother Harrogate’s defenders and showing vision with his passing. One little thing that delighted me was seeing how often he looks up and scans the field to assess what’s going on. Obviously all players are always looking somewhere but he was assessing what was happening in the game and looking for opportunities. Just like Kane was spotting runs for cross-field passes, Evans was reading the game in a way I’ve not seen in a Town midfielder for a long time. I’m excited to watch more of our two new midfielders.
• Josh Koroma has the sort of game I’ve seen him have before. He got a lot of shooting opportunities (well done) and spurned them (not so well done). You can make up your own mind about whether this was overall a good performance or not. Personally, the fact he had so many chances and didn’t get on the scoresheet points towards a poor outing, particularly when he often chose to shoot when squaring to a colleague was at least as good an option. 
• Kian Harratt did well at holding up the ball in the build up to Town’s only second half goal. But he also looked a bit cumbersome and rusty at times too – possibly due to a lack of football since his injury and gambling ban. 
• Neo Eccleston was out of position in central defence but still put in an eye-catching performance, particularly when he dribbled forward and carried the ball upfield. I think there were times he couldn’t quite believe his dribbling had got him as far as it did and he wasn’t sure what to do next. However, there was more than enough evidence in this display to justify taking him to Austria and giving him more time with the first team. 
• Radinio Balker played an absolutely sublime long ball at one point and another few decent crossfield balls. If any Town fans were questioning why such a quality looking player has turned up at Huddersfield Town, the evidence emerged when a fairly innocuous looking coming together with a Harrogate player saw him staying on the ground in agony. It looked like a bit of bad luck more than anything but for a player who’s whole career has been punctuated by serious injuries, this looked worrying. Maybe it’s not as bad as it looked from the stands but a lengthy layoff seems to be on the cards.
• Chapman had little to do, Kasumu was busy and seemed fine, Ruffels similar, Radulovic struggled to make an impact in the limited minutes he had when he replaced Harratt. Cameron Ashia ran and ran in the few minutes he had in the pitch following Balkers injury, which was nice to see but he didn’t get much chance to show anything beyond a high work rate in this short run out.

Who didn’t play for Town?

There are only so many slots available if Town play two lots of XI in a friendly, so with a squad our size, there will always be players who miss out. In the absence of a recent injury or availability update from the club it’s hard to know the reasons for anyone not making these teams but here’s a list of the first teamers who didn’t feature:

• Chris Maxwell – though he was there in his tracksuit ready to jump in if either keeper got injured and was involved in the warm ups.
• Michal Helik – Hopefully not on his way out but we’re all expecting he’ll leave before the transfer window shuts.
• Brodie Spencer – Another one I’m hoping we keep but fearing we might lose. It could be just a niggle or that Duff wanted a look at other players in the positions he plays.
• Ben Jackson – Third choice left wingback and distant backup for a range of other positions. 
• Tom Lees – Recovering from injury I would guess. 
• Pat Jones – Surprisingly not involved after some spritely performances in our earlier friendlies. Maybe he just didn’t make the cut or it could be he’s picked up an injury.
• Scott High – Played for the B Team against Ossett in midweek, so just not in contention.
• Tyreece Simpson – As above
• Kyle Hudlin – Status unknown. I don’t think I’ve seen him in any of the club’s training videos or the preseason games so far. Maybe he’s injured or there might be something going on with him. It’s not a mystery that keeps me awake at night, if I’m being brutally honest.

TerriierSpirit.com verdict on the Harrogate Town friendly

I was impressed with Huddersfield Town’s performance in this game. It was a step up in opponent from our first two friendlies but we still managed to dominate the game and showed some ambition with the style of play we were trying to implement. I liked the way we dominated possession for spells and used that as a method to control the game and almost grind down the opposition by moving the ball around. Off the ball, I like how aggressively we pressed, which led to chances and made them uncomfortable but I was a bit concerned that we sometimes left ourselves short at the back. This is probably just a matter of tightening up and getting better organised, which is what preseason is for.

Our new signings all showed signs of what they are capable of. Sorensen has been consistently impressive, Evans stood out with his tenacity and industry, Kane showed glimmers of his ability to spray balls around and Miller’s blasted crosses looked (mostly) dangerous. 

My memory of our last spell in League One was that Town were usually the dominant team and could boss possession and territory in most games. However, teams would often sit deep against us and we’d struggle to break them down and create decent chances. So we’d end up either not scoring at all and have to settle for a drab draw or we’d get a narrow lead only to throw it away when the other team made attacking subs late on and we couldn’t cope with their change in tactics. The system Town have been setting up to play in preseason seems tailor made to address this sort of situation, as there’s a structured approach to piling numbers forward and creating high-quality chances for the forwards and attacking midfielders. In theory at least. Having two strikers, two midfielders that are playing like number tens and two wingbacks that play like wingers mean there are plenty of numbers in the box when we do get forward and it’s nice to see. And for once we seem to have recruited the right players for the system we want to play too. I think the way Duff is getting Town playing will be good at breaking down those defensive-minded opponents and creating chances against them. 

I’ve also been impressed by the general level of fitness on display from Town. It’s improved from game to game as you would expect and at Harrogate every player looked sharp and was able to carry out the high pressing game that they were instructed to do. If my memory is right, I don’t think we’d typically still be only playing 45 minutes of games at this stage of preseason but I’d guess that intensity is being prioritised over quantity of minutes. And in a world where five subs are allowed, I think this makes a lot of sense, as half the outfield players can be switched, it’s better to go hell for leather in the minutes you play rather than preserving energy and treating the games like marathons. 

Next stop Austria

Town will fly off for their camp in Austria towards the end of this week, so we’re getting to the end of the first stage of preseason. It’ll be interesting to see who makes it onto the plane for this trip. I’m hoping a few of the youngsters that have impressed so far get a chance. Tom Iorpenda and Neo Eccleston have done themselves plenty of favours in the Harrogate game and should be taken in my view. It’ll also be interesting to see if any of the players rumoured to be on their way out of the door are left behind. It’s possible that there could be a new arrival or two before the plane leaves too but there’s no rumblings to that effect at the moment. 

Sadly I won’t be travelling out to Austria but if the games are streamed by the club, I’ll be watching them and will do a write up on each game. We’ve got some decent opposition lined up, so it will be a good test for Michael Duff’s new-look Terriers.