Predicted lineup, score and four questions for Huddersfield Town’s trip to Blackburn

Town have now played their last midweek game of the season and only have games today and the following two Saturdays before we can all do our best to pretend this season never happened. 

Today’s trip to Blackburn is the final game of a sequence of seven games in three weeks for the Terriers so there’s a ready-baked excuse for a subdued performance today. However, if Town can get a win out of this game we can “celebrate” that we’ve retained our Championship status one game earlier than last season. While that’s the kind of progress you need a microscope to inspect, at least those nagging fears of relegation can be put to bed. A defeat will leave us nervously looking at the results of the teams below us. 

Anyway, here are my thoughts in this game:

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Blackburn 

Goalkeeper: Ryan Schofield 

Defence: Pipa, Keogh, Sarr, Toffolo

Midfield: Hogg, O’Brien, Bacuna 

Attack: Rowe, Sanogo, Koroma 

The big question for today’s team is whether Pipa and Toffolo are fit enough to both start. If they are, we can expect to see Town in their more natural 4-3-3 shape and players being played in their natural positions. Without them there are likely to be compromises all over the pitch that fundamentally weaken the team. 

Carel Eiting’s brief cameo at the end of the Barnsley game showed how much we need a creative, ball-playing midfielder but I don’t think he’ll be ready to start games given his dodgy knee. Having him close to a full return puts a bit of pressure on the rest of midfield though and will hopefully make them all play a bit better. 

I’m not sure about the attacking options for this game. Danny Ward may be preferred to Sanogo if we’re going to try and get the ball down and play. If we want a target man to lump it up to then it’ll be Sanogo. Rowe and Koroma are the best available options on the wings but Aarons, Thomas, Mbenza or Holmes could be potential starters. 

Score prediction – 1-0 to Town

Both sides have let plenty of goals in this season but I have a feeling it’ll be another nervy and tight game. If we make the game scrappy then a single goal may decide it and I’m backing Town to get it based on the fact we need the points more than Blackburn, who already have 50.

If my prediction is correct and Toffolo, O’Brien and Koroma all play down the left then that trio have proven earlier this season that they can craft openings with clever interplay. That feels like the most likely way we’ll score today. 

4 questions that we’ll get answers to today

What is our way of playing now? 

On Tuesday night I thought that Barnsley won the game because they enforced their gameplan better than us and we played to their strengths. Then I thought, what is our gameplan these days? In the first half of the season it was pretty clear what we were trying to do. It was Leeds-lite, Bielsaball adjusted for Huddersfield Town’s more meagre playing resources. It worked very well at times and pretty poorly at others but there was an obvious intention to what we were aiming to do. Lately, I’m less sure of the plan. More pragmatic, yes, but otherwise its hard to describe. 

I think we’ve become a lot more concerned about our opponents tactics and often just try to negate their strengths rather than create much ourselves. We definitely don’t mess about at the back as much as we used to and we don’t dominate possession as much as a result. I think we try to play on the break more but rarely carve open chances from these situations. 

I think the truth is that we’re trying to scrape together the points we need to get over the line this season and identity and playing style have been put to one side for now. Which is fine, I suppose. I just hope we go back to trying to play better looking football next season. 

Can we grind out another away win? 

Forgive my pessimism but the only kind of win I can see Town getting today is one that they achieve through grim determination rather than flowing football. Scrape a goal however possible and then cling on until the final whistle. 

I’ve doubted the character of this team to pull off this kind of result this season, so there would be some kind of achievement to grinding out a win. Blackburn have had a poor season but have played some good stuff at times and have some decent individuals, so we’ll have to be on our game if we want to get something from the game. 

Which Bacuna will we get today? 

Bacuna fans were out in force last Saturday after his superb individual goal he scored against Forest. They were less in evidence on Tuesday night after a performance that was only notable for the pathetic waft at the ball he made when he failed to clear the ball before it dropped to Dike for the game’s only goal.

The ratio of good Bacuna games to bad Bacuna games hasn’t been enough to justify his near constant team selection this season but I think he keeps getting a game because he might come good any minute. 

Bacuna’s contract is up at the end of this season but the club have the option to extend by a further year. Hopefully the Simon Baldry effect will kick in and we’ll see an improvement as he tries to justify an extension to his contract (or even to put himself in the shop window for other clubs). I don’t particularly care what it is that motivates him, if we can get him to put in one of his better performances it could make all the difference. 

Could Town be mathematically safe today? 

Yes! If Town win then we’ll go to fifty points and that will mean Sheffield Wednesday will join Wycombe as a team that won’t be able to catch us regardless of their results. Rotherham will theoretically be able to overtake us as they have four more games to play after today (though they’ll need to win four of their final five games to get past us in this scenario). Derby, however, are running out of games. So if they lose and we win then they will be the third team that can’t catch us, meaning we’ll be mathematically safe. 

If Town fail to win then we can’t be definitely safe but a point would give us a little bit more breathing space and results going for us in other games could put us in a very strong position. 

I have a suspicion that we already have enough points on the board to be safe. The teams below us are there for a reason and we have a decent buffer between us and them. My hope is that we can win the game today, achieve safety on our own terms and stop worrying about the possibility of League One next season.