Blog – Page 44 – Terrier Spirit – Huddersfield Town FC blog

Jan182021 by Terrier Spirit9 Comments

The mistake, the assault, tedious tactics, murderball, commentary and transfer rumours – Notes on Watford away

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-0 by Watford on Saturday in a game that turned on a silly mistake by Ryan Schofield. The opener came at an unfortunate moment in the game and gave Town a mountain to climb against a Watford team full of quality players. It’s one of those games that you can find negatives or positives, depending on your disposition. Some fans will despair at Town’s lack of attacking threat and inability to put pressure on the Watford goal. Other fans, the dangerously optimistic ones, would point to how Town mostly held their own against one of the league's strongest teams despite having to field a team full of untested backup players. The mistake This was a game that was light on incident or drama, so the first thing to talk about is Schofield’s nightmare moment wh...

Jan172021 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

“Too sloppy” – Huddersfield Town player ratings following their 2-0 defeat to Watford

Matches

Huddersfield Town were beaten by a better opponent in yesterday’s game but it’s hard not to come away from the match wondering what might have happened. What if Deeney had been sent off in the first half? What if Schofield hadn’t misread Vallejo’s backpass? What if we had decent, experienced players on the bench to bring on when we fell behind? We’ll never know. So instead we’ve just got to mull over this defeat and put it behind us before we entertain Millwall on Wednesday night. Here are my player ratings. Ryan Schofield - 3 out of 10 There’s no nice way of saying it, his error cost us the game. I don’t think there’s a lot of benefit in finger pointing or shaming players for mistakes, it’s something to learn from and move on. He completely misjudged the pace of the ball, the speed of...

Jan162021 by Terrier Spirit6 Comments

Immediate thoughts on Huddersfield Town’s 2-0 defeat to Watford

Matches, Opinion

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-0 by Watford in a game that will be remembered for a Ryan Schofield lapse of concentration, a red card incident that wasn’t for Troy Deeney and little else. Town fielded an inexperienced and young side and made a good job of containing Watford in the first half and were following a similar path in the second half until Schofield’s moment to forget. After that it was a fairly straight forward victory for Watford who were obviously the better team on the day. Here are a few of my immediate thoughts on the game in bullet point form, a more in depth look at the game will follow tomorrow. Schofield’s mistake turned the game away from Town but he deserves some slack after his saves have already won us points this season (most notably in the game we won aga...

Jan162021 by Terrier Spirit23 Comments

Decimated by injuries – Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Watford

Matches

Huddersfield Town play Watford later today at Vicarage Road. After resting the first team last weekend it was hoped they would all be fully fit and fresh but a glut of injuries means we're going to be relying on our backup players to fill in the gaps. this afternoon So despite beating Watford only a few weeks ago on home turf, it's hard to be optimistic going into this game. We're really relying on the new faces coming into today's team doing as well or better than the players they replace, which seems like a big ask based on what we've seen from the fringe players when they've been given a chance. Watford managers have roughly the same shelf life as fairground goldfish, so it's not surprise they've a new manager for this game. I'm not going to bother learning anything about this one as ...

Jan102021 by Terrier Spirit22 Comments

Player write ups after HTAFC’s FA Cup defeat to Plymouth and why I’m not giving player ratings out of 10

Matches

Huddersfield Town made eleven changes to their starting lineup and a youthful Terriers team fell to a 3-2 defeat against an almost full-strength Plymouth. While there’s a debate to be had about the wisdom of fielding such a weakened team and another about the true value of the FA Cup to teams like Town, I enjoyed the match and was pleased to see our academy lads given a chance. I usually give player ratings after Town games but I’ve decided to step away from that tradition for this particular game. It doesn’t feel fair to pass judgement on yesterday’s Town team with it featuring so many players at the start of their careers. Instead I’m going to just write a few sentences to summarise each player’s performance and I’ll leave the numbers out even though I’ll try and give a balanced summary...

Jan92021 by Terrier Spirit16 Comments

Wholesale changes – Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Plymouth

Matches

Huddersfield Town will play Plymouth in the third round of the FA Cup this evening. While all the "magic of the cup" clichés are trotted out as usual, it's hard not to feel like this is just lip service when most clubs will be fielding dramatically weakened sides in a bid to rest their first team players. I strongly suspect Huddersfield Town will be no different to other clubs and will play a second string team of mostly youngsters. Anyone that remembers the friendlies against Bradford and Manchester United U23s friendlies will recall that it was actually quite entertaining to watch our academy lads being given a chance. So I'm hoping Carlos does shuffle the pack a bit for this fixture and gives us a chance to see some of our future stars. It's possible that players that do w...

Jan52021 by Terrier Spirit5 Comments

Why Huddersfield Town should be cautious this transfer window

Transfers

The January transfer window has opened and fans are ravenously consuming every scrap of a rumour they can lay their hands on. Instead of engaging in the usual tittle tattle, I’ve written a two-part post about whether it would be wise for Huddersfield Town to spend some money on new players this transfer window. The first part argued that now is the right time to invest in the playing squad, if you’ve not read it yet you can check it out by clicking anywhere on this sentence. In this second part we’ll look at the argument for Phil and the board keeping their hand on their collective tuppence when it comes to this transfer window. It’s never exciting to argue for restraint but there are some solid reasons for Huddersfield Town to show some caution in this transfer window. Here are my main r...

Jan52021 by Terrier Spirit5 Comments

Why Huddersfield Town should spend some money in this transfer window

Transfers

This article is the first of a two-parter where I'm going to look at both sides of the argument about whether Town should have a modest transfer window this January or whether they should spend, spend, spend. This one will make the case for why now is the time to get some money spent. Last transfer window, fans often fell into two distinct camps of those that defended the club's hierarchy for keeping their hand on their tuppence and those that wanted at least some of the money received in transfer fees and reduced wages to be reinvested into the playing squad. It's transpired that the business Town did in the last window was generally very good and we picked up some shrewd signings. Though I do often wonder if we would be even better placed if we'd have brought in two or three more attac...

Jan32021 by Terrier Spirit8 Comments

“He didn’t do well enough in key moments” – Player ratings for Huddersfield Town’s 2-1 defeat to Reading

Matches

Despite taking an early lead, Huddersfield Town were defeated by Reading yesterday in a game that saw Town play OK but far from their best. Reading looked like the livelier attacking force and on the day were able to produce two moments of quality that won them the game. Overall, I’m not too disappointed by this result and as Town have already amassed a decent number of points we can chalk this game down as fair enough and move on. Next week’s game against Plymouth should see the novelty of some of the squad players getting a run out and many of today’s first eleven getting a long-overdue rest after being worked very hard over the last few months. Here are my ratings for each player: Ryan Schofield - 7 out of 10 Made an amazing, point-blank save just before half time that prese...

Jan22021 by Terrier Spirit14 Comments

Immediate thoughts about Town’s 2-1 defeat to Reading

Matches

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-1 by Reading today in a game that saw Town struggle against a quality opponent. It wasn’t a bad performance by Town but it was more subdued than usual, mostly because we were up against a team with quality players, particularly up front, and we only properly went after them when we were 2-1 down in the second half. Here are a few of my immediate thoughts from straight after the game. I’ll post more in-depth thoughts on the blog tomorrow. Town played the same wonky 4-3-3 formation, with O’Brien a left winger that tends to drop back a bit with Mbenza playing more like a proper winger. The opening goal came from an excellent whipped cross from Mbenza and Campbell was in the perfect position to nod it home. Campbell is guily of not attacking the six-y...