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Why I’m Warming to Huddersfield Town’s Appointment of Martin Drury

Why I’m Warming to Huddersfield Town’s Appointment of Martin Drury

News, Opinion
Huddersfield Town have announced Martin Drury as their new head coach, following Liam Manning's recent departure from the club. After overseeing the last seven games of the season as a caretaker management duo with Jon Stead, Drury now takes the reins full time with Stead his assistant.  While Drury doesn't have vast experience as a head coach, he did impress with the style of play and straight talking media work when he was caretaker. While the results weren't quite what we needed during that spell, it was the kind of football that we've been promised by previous managers but haven't consistently seen.  I wrote about our vacancy last week and said that I would prefer Town to appoint someone with more experience but now the job has been given to Drury, I'm willing to get be...
Who will be the next Huddersfield Town manager?

Who will be the next Huddersfield Town manager?

News, Opinion
Liam Manning's permanent departure from Huddersfield Town was confirmed last week. Few will have been surprised to hear he wasn't coming back, given the short break he took to address what is clearly a long-term issue. Every sympathy should be extended to Manning and I wish him well for his future but it also sends Huddersfield Town back to the drawing board and having to pick yet another manager. It's tempting to say we've got to get this decision right. But we said that before Lee Grant was appointed. And before Michael Duff and all the other failed coaches that have quickly been in and out of the door. So while it feels like we've got to get this decision right, recent history suggests we may well get it wrong anyway. Thoughts on Manning's departure I really feel for Mannin...
Notes on Huddersfield Town’s impressive 4-0 victory over AFC Wimbledon

Notes on Huddersfield Town’s impressive 4-0 victory over AFC Wimbledon

Matches, Notes
Huddersfield Town bounced back from their drubbing at the hands of Mansfield last week by handing out a drubbing to Wimbledon yesterday. Neither result particularly matters in the grand scheme of things but it was at least some consolation to see the team play well. Wimbledon had secured survival in their penultimate game of the season so approached this game as a pre-holiday kickabout, so Town didn't have to work too hard to find their openings. Even still, this was a genuinely good Huddersfield Town performance which is something we've seen very little of this season. It's easy to frame this game as a disappointment because we waited until our season was effectively over to show what we can do, Martin Drury certainly felt this way in his post-match comments. It's probably more useful ...
Some random thoughts about Huddersfield Town’s 1-0 victory over Bradford City

Some random thoughts about Huddersfield Town’s 1-0 victory over Bradford City

Matches, Notes
In Liam Manning’s first game as manager, we saw a team playing with the parts of the game that we’ve been badly missing for the majority of this season. Grit, fight, bravery and energy were the qualities that stood out over the 90 minutes, which gave Town the platform to then play quality football at times too. It was the sort of front-foot, aggressive football that we’d been promised under the banner of “Northern Football” even though the reality under Lee Grant was a far more tepid and sanitised version.  It’s been a struggle to find time to do writeups about Huddersfield Town recently, so this article is a bit of an experiment. Here are my random thoughts on Town’s brilliant 1-0 victory over Bradford City.  How the game unfolded Town made a brilliant, positive start w...
Wallace overlooked, a battling performance, window shopping & softball interviews – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 1-1 draw with Lincoln

Wallace overlooked, a battling performance, window shopping & softball interviews – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 1-1 draw with Lincoln

Matches, Notes
Huddersfield Town managed to come away from Sincil Bank with a point following their 1-1 draw with Lincoln. You can question whether a team with our aspirations should be satisfied scraping a draw against Lincoln but that mentality wouldn't acknowledge the quality Lincoln play with, their current run of excellent form and that we can't expect teams to roll over for us just because we're Huddersfield Town. Lincoln carved us open time after time in the first half but wayward finishing and good work from Nicholls kept us in the game. We then grew into the game in the second half, taking the lead through Leo Castledine before being pegged back thanks to being outmuscled at a set piece. A fair result and decent performance, even if both could have been better. Alfie May looked like he was...
Castledine’s future, Lee Grant’s Barmy What?, dreadful Port Vale, reason why Town have improved and fan behaviour warnings – Notes on Huddersfield Town 5-0 Port Vale

Castledine’s future, Lee Grant’s Barmy What?, dreadful Port Vale, reason why Town have improved and fan behaviour warnings – Notes on Huddersfield Town 5-0 Port Vale

Matches
Five-nil? Really? Yep, Huddersfield Town beat Port Vale 5-0 on Boxing Day thanks to a good Town performance colliding with a woeful Port Vale team. It feels a bit miserable to overly focus on how bad Port Vale were though and it was Town's good play that helped to expose their frailties. And while they really did stink, this was their heaviest defeat of the season, so we've battered them more than any other team they've faced. This result puts Town's season in a strange sort of limbo. Prior to the last two games, Town could be easily written off as enduring another bad season with another failed managerial appointment. But two strong performances against admittedly weak opposition have stoked up a bit of hope in Town fans. Without knowing what the rest of the season holds it's tricky to...
“They’ll be having nightmares about him” – Player ratings for Huddersfield Town’s 5-0 demolition of Port Vale

“They’ll be having nightmares about him” – Player ratings for Huddersfield Town’s 5-0 demolition of Port Vale

Matches, Player ratings
Huddersfield Town smashed Port Vale 5-0 on Boxing Day, taking full advantage of an abysmal away team in a way that was decidedly not very Christmassy. And as much as Port Vale were terrible, Huddersfield Town did an excellent job of exposing their soft underbelly. After a poor run of results put Lee Grant's job under threat and saw the fans turn on him, emphatic wins against Rotherham and Port Vale have eased the pressure on him (for now at least). Here's what I made of each individual performance in this game… Lee Nicholls - 6 out of 10 Firstly I'd like to congratulate our keeper on the arrival of his new baby. And while he might not be getting much rest at night with a newborn at home, he had a very peaceful afternoon between the sticks, without a single save to make. Terry t...
Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Port Vale

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Port Vale

Matches, Predicted lineups
Huddersfield Town take on bottom-of-the-table Port Vale on Boxing Day, in a game that should in theory be an easy victory for Town but when does reality ever match up to theory in football? While Port Vale haven't won in the league since September, Town also have a track record of unburdening opposition teams of their bad runs of form. The "And He Takes That Chance Podcast" refer to Huddersfield Town as Charity FC because of this tendency to offer hope to seemingly helpless clubs. Will that tendency emerge during the season of goodwill to all men? If we play like we did against Rotherham last weekend then we should easily dispatch Port Vale but if it's more like our last game (against Wigan, not Wimbledon as I suggested in my last post) then any team would have a chance. Getting the sel...
Kane’s attempted street fight, fan reaction to Lee Grant, Darren Moore’s return and finding form – Talking points ahead of Huddersfield Town v Port Vale

Kane’s attempted street fight, fan reaction to Lee Grant, Darren Moore’s return and finding form – Talking points ahead of Huddersfield Town v Port Vale

Matches, Talking points
Huddersfield Town host Port Vale on Boxing Day with Town hoping that they can build on their emphatic win against Rotherham last weekend. But "the group" will be equally aware of how quickly the crowd will turn if they revert back to the football that saw them draw 3-3 against a poor Wigan team in their last home outing. Port Vale come to the game in poor form with Darren Moore under pressure for his job. While his time at Town ended in failure, he always came across as a decent guy and it's a shame he's struggled to establish Port Vale in League One after securing promotion for them last season. I always love going to a Town home game on Boxing Day, so this game will feel like a festive treat regardless of the outcome but there is a fair amount riding on this fixture. Town will want to...
Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Luton & pre-match talking points

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Luton & pre-match talking points

Matches, Predicted lineups, Talking points
Huddersfield Town are in Luton tonight to try and extend their winning run to four games. Luton Town were in the Premier League just a few seasons ago but are a completely different proposition at the moment, with their last outing being a 5-0 thumping from Barnsley.  It’s a sad state of affairs that both Luton Town and Huddersfield Town are coming into this game as mid-table League One teams when it wasn’t that long ago that we knocked them out of the Championship playoff semi-finals thanks to a Jordan Rhodes goal. Both teams find themselves in reduced circumstances but my impression is that Luton are roughly were Town were last season and haven’t hit their rock bottom yet. My hope is that Town’s limp finish to last season was their rock bottom and this season will be the one wher...