Beauty and the beast, Sorba steps up, grafting midfielders and the usual gripes – Notes on the Norwich friendly

My cat likes to catch mice and bring them into the house when they’re half dead. He’ll then play around with them for a while, having great fun while the poor defenseless creature suffers. That’s the closest metaphor I can think of to compare our last meeting with Norwich. So it’s not a huge surprise to see that most Town fans came away from this game happy to have only lost by two. 

Norwich were clearly the classier outfit but Town played with a good tempo and unsettled Norwich with our energy and high press. There was good stuff and not so good stuff on display from Town in this game, I’ll try to talk about both below. 

We played some nice football but didn’t create enough and made individual errors at the back

The above summary of this game could probably apply to around two thirds of the many games we’ve lost during Carlos Corberán’s reign. It’s good that we were capable of having nice spells of football but it’s frustrating that we don’t have that ability to turn periods of dominance into a flurry of clear cut chances. 

I can see there is potential for Carlos to achieve great things at Town in the right circumstances but not if we keep making the same mistakes both off and on the pitch. Preseason is absolutely the right time to make mistakes but I have a sneaking suspicion that these individual errors at the back are actually a systematic problem. Our tactics put too much pressure on the defenders and keeper, so they inevitably make these mistakes.

If the individual errors were purely down to the players then simply changing the players would fix the issue. Yet we played a host of combinations at the back last season and have new personnel at the back this season yet we’re seeing the same formula repeat itself. 

One of the things that makes Leeds under Bielsa exciting to watch (which is hard to say but true in my opinion) is that they both score and concede a lot of goals. Town’s defensive frailties would be easier to stomach if they could counteract them by banging in goals at the other end. This comparison probably needs its own article to fully explore but I think the main difference between Bielsa and Carlos (apart from the quality of players) is that Bielsa embraces chaos in games and uses it to his team’s advantage where Carlos wants his team to limit the chaotic moments and stifles games with spells of dreary possession. 

I hope that this season we might see a few more games where we take the handbrake off and deliver on the promise of no limits, attacking football. If we don’t have individual players capable of crafting quality chances then flooding forward in numbers can be enough to force chances and unsettle the opposition. It all looked a bit too neat and cautious against Norwich. 

Pearson and Colwill – A beauty and the beast partnership 

I think Pearson and Sarr will be our first choice defensive partnership at the start of the season but Colwell looks very good and could take Sarr’s place fairly soon. This Norwich game was a chance to see what a Pearson and Colwill partnership would look like and I think the two are well suited as a pairing. 

I’ve likened them to beauty and the beast because Colwell is an elegant and creative defender in the modern style, whereas Pearson is a nasty piece of work in the best possible way. I think these two compliment each other nicely. Colwell can be allowed to ping sixty yard diagonal balls out to the wingers’ toe ends and step out of defence to bring the ball upfield while Pearson will crunch into tackles and scream in the faces of anyone that dares look at him the wrong way. 

There’s a nice ying and yang to this duo: The creator and the destroyer; youth and experience; inspiration and pragmatism; elegance and blunt force trauma. I might be overdoing it a bit but I’m excited to see more of this pairing in the Championship in the coming season. 

Hogg, O’Brien and High as a midfield three

Scott High is having a good preseason and I’m guessing he’s forced his way into contention for the first team in the upcoming season rather than going out on loan again. 

Playing High in a midfield trio including Hogg and O’Brien means we have a huge strength in this area and a glaring weakness. It’s debatable whether the balance of qualities is right but it’s an interesting combination. While Colwell and Pearson have a good blend of skills, there might be too many similarities in the skills of this midfield three. 

The obvious strength is the amount of energy they all bring to midfield. Hogg, O’Brien and High are all three players that like to get into the opposition’s faces and put pressure on the ball. The pressing from midfield with these three is impressive and means even a team with the quality of Norwich struggled to settle on the ball. 

All that hustle bustle comes at a cost though and that’s the creative aspects of the game. Unless there’s a significant improvement in this area, none of this midfield are likely to be a regular source of goals or assists. There’s not that bit of creative magic that Carel Eiting or Aaron Mooy have been able to produce for Town in recent years (more on this below). 

I think Lewis O’Brien could be this type of player in time and his tendency to pop up on the right side of midfield this preseason has been a deliberate tactic to give him the chance to cut inside onto his preferred left foot to shoot. But as yet his goals and assist record don’t match the obvious potential he has in this area.

Sorba Thomas continues to impress 

The team selection for this game seemed a bit strange as Duane Holmes was played out wide rather than in his preferred role as an attacking midfielder. Which meant that Sorba Thomas was relegated to the bench despite being one of our better players so far in preseason. 

I wonder if Thomas at Town could be a bit like Jack Grealish in the England squad at the Euros. It may be that Carlos sees Holmes as a more disciplined player and Thomas as a flair player to bring off the bench to try change games. 

All Thomas can do is put in decent performances when he’s given a chance and so far he is doing just that. He runs directly at this man, which no defender likes, and he’s got the skills to get the better of his fullback most of the time. 

He’s making a huge step up from non-league football but his performances suggest he’s ready for a chance to start games. I’d certainly rather see him on the right wing than Holmes, who isn’t a bad option but would be more effective in a central position. 

Something is missing 

I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that Town are lacking a creative spark in the final third. There were a few decent chances against Norwich but we didn’t look much like scoring even in the spells where we were clearly the dominant team. 

While the strikers frequently bear the brunt of the finger pointing, I think the real issue is the link between midfield and attack. Aaron Mooy did this job previously, Alex Pritchard was supposed to be the solution but wasn’t, then Carel Eiting did it for a few games and elevated the whole team but nobody currently has that ability. 

I’d say this is the biggest problem facing Huddersfield Town right now. There are a few possible solutions to this predicament:

• Change the tactics – I alluded to this above but we are a bit too cautious and slow in our build up play. The same players could create more if they took more risks and bombed forward more. Getting bodies in the box was a feature of early Corberán performances but less so these days. 
• Recruitment – the easy but costly solution is to bring in a player that has that magic dust on their boots kind of quality that we saw glimmers of when Smith Rowe came in on loan. Top quality players from Premier League academies require loan fees these days, so it may be this kind of signing will only be sanctioned once Bacuna and/or Mbenza are offloaded. 
• Promoting from within – There are several players already in the squad that have potential to be this creative link between midfield and attack. Brahima Diarra and Matty Daly are the most obvious choices but are they ready? Daly has been close to the first team for years but is yet to have a consistent run of games, I assume there are good reasons for this. Diarra looks great from the brief glimpses we’ve had but he’s so young that it could be another couple of years at least before he’s ready for regular first team football. Then again, Sir Matt Busby famously said “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough” and maybe he should be given more minutes to show if he’s up to it. 

What’s next for Town? 

Town take on the Cod Army on Tuesday night when they travel to Fleetwood. This will technically be our final preseason game for the first team but the Carabao Cup game seems likely to be approached like another friendly game rather than the actual competitive game that it should be. 

Given Covid isolation and niggling injuries have depleted our available squad, I suspect we’ll see several youth players given a chance on Tuesday night as the first choice players won’t be asked to play two lots of 90 minutes in the week before the Championship starts. 

My guess is we’ll see the best available eleven against Sheffield Wednesday but the game will be treated like a dress rehearsal for the season rather than a proper, competitive game. 

My impression is that Town see League Cup games as a nuisance that adds to fixture congestion given how we seem to lose in the first round almost every year. I find this mentality infuriating (particularly when managers make fictitious statements before the game about how much they respect the competition) as a cup run is great for fans and winning games builds confidence regardless of the competition. 

I’ve got more to say on this issue but this article is already far too long. Well done if you made it this far!