Matches – Page 49 – Terrier Spirit – Huddersfield Town FC blog

Nov232019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

What options does Danny Cowley have for his injury-ravaged defence?

Matches

Danny Cowley's prematch press conference for the Birmingham game was dominated by discussion of the plethora of defenders that are unavailable for today's game. Danny Simpson (hip), Jaden Brown (ankle) and Tommy Elphick (season ending knee injury) are all out of contention leaving Danny Cowley a selection headache. Here are a few of the options he might consider: RB: Hadergjonaj CB: Stankovic CB: Schindler LB: Kongolo This back four is the most obvious selection for Cowley, given Hadergjonaj, Stankovic and Kongolo are the three most likely second-choices for the positions that are available due to injury. All three of these defensive additions have question marks over them: Hadergjonaj’s lack of positional awareness and tendency to endlessly back peddle mean he is out of favour w...

Aug212019 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

How changing one player and switching formation can fix some of Huddersfield Town’s problems

Matches

Mark Hudson takes charge of Huddersfield Town tonight as caretaker manager in their match against Cardiff City. He's the bookies favourite to land the job on a permanent basis and used his prematch press conference to confirm his desire to take charge. The next few games are an opportunity for Hudson to show he has what it takes to turn around Town's fortunes. The first job for Hudson will be to pick a team and set the tactics for the Cardiff game. In my opinion, he can fix some of Town's biggest problems by making just one change to the starting lineup and tweaking the formation. Here's how... Go back to playing 4-2-3-1 Mark Hudson was a key member of Town's promotion winning team in the Championship which played 4-2-3-1 for the majority of the season. Jan Siewert wanted to set Town ...

Aug192019 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

How Jan Siewert’s last game sums up his time at Town

Matches

Jan Siewert was sacked shortly after Town fell to a 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Friday night. It was a game that had several of the hallmarks of Siewert’s time at Huddersfield Town. Individual errors, tactical confusion, a lack of attacking intent and substitutions that were either wrongly timed or simply just wrong. Here are a few of my thoughts on how this game acted as a 90-minute summary of the Jan Siewert-era: Individual errors: Bacuna set to self-destruct mode Before I put the boot into Juninho Bacuna, I’d like to say that I’m generally a fan of his and can see that he has a lot of potential. Now I've said that, he was dreadful against Fulham. It’s was the kind of performance where he seemed to have a reverse midas touch: every time he got involved he ballsed it up. Perhaps with ...

Aug82019 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

6 grumbles about Huddersfield Town’s 2-1 defeat to Derby

Matches

Huddersfield Town were beaten 2-1 by Derby in their opening Championship fixture on Monday night. The defeat came about, in part, because of silly individual errors and poor defensive organisation. The confidence that had been painstakingly built over the course of preseason quickly evaporated. A change of approach at half-time spurred Town onto the front foot and made us more competitive, but it didn’t lead to the goals we were pushing for. Midfield confusion in the first half My impression of the first half was that our midfield was completely overrun by Derby and poor Jonathan Hogg was often left with the impossible job of tracking up to three players, while Mooy and Bacuna both seemed to be positioned far too high up the pitch. Town’s midfield looked almost non-existent at times a...

Aug52019 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to face Derby

Matches, Opinion

Here’s is the selection that I think Jan Siewert will go with to take on Debry tonight. I’m usually pretty hopeless at accurately predicting lineups, so I wouldn’t hold too much stock in what you read below. With that disclaimer in mind, here’s my prediction: Goalkeeper: Grabara The massive keeper comes on loan from Liverpool with quite a lot of hype but not a lot of experience. He looked very good in the short amount of time I saw him during preseason and could be a key player for Town this season. Watch out for his kicking, as it’s rumoured he can pick players out accurately deep in the opposition half. If this is true then I suspect we’ll try and use this long, flat kicks to launch counter attacks. Defence: Kongolo, Schindler, Elphick, Hadergjonaj I think I’d prefer to see Kongol...

Aug52019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

We’re doomed! A miserable preview of Huddersfield Town’s chances this season

Matches

As the season opener approaches for Town I found it hard to write a preview for the year ahead because I can’t make my mind up about the kind of season we should expect as Town fans. Obviously last season was a terrible time for the club but lots has changed since our relegation from the Premier League. In the end, I decided to make two separate and contradictory season previews. One for the optimists and one for the pessimists. This article is going to take a doom and gloom look at the season ahead, for all the negative Nancys out there. If you’d prefer the rose-tinted specs version then click this link. Here are my reasons to feel worried about Town's prospects this year: Jan Siewert is inexperienced and clearly struggled in his first half a season Town were poor towards the end ...

Aug42019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

A ridiculously optimistic assessment of Huddersfield Town’s chances this season

Matches

As the season opener approaches for Town, I found it hard to preview this season because I can’t make my mind up about the kind of year we should expect as Town fans. Obviously last season was a terrible time for the club but lots has changed since our relegation from the Premier League. In the end, I decided to make two separate and contradictory season previews. One for the optimists and one for the pessimists. I like to look on the bright side, so I’m starting with the positive views first. The negative one will be up on the blog shortly. Here are my reasons I think Town can expect a good year: Jan Siewert has a clear vision about how he wants to play and it suits our squad Siewert has been quite clear about the way he wants Town to play. We’ll mostly lineup 4-3-3 and will play wit...

Jul172019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Squad report – Do Huddersfield Town have two players for every position?

Matches

In the Q&A with new Chairman, Phil Hodgkinson, it was made clear that Town now have a full squad and will only bring new players in as a result of other players leaving. He also said that our star players would only leave if we received “very big bids”, so it’s possible that the core of the current squad will be in tact when the transfer window closes in a few weeks time. So here’s a look at the squad as it stands, looking specifically at whether we have two players for every position in Siewert’s preferred 4-3-3 system. Goalkeepers - Grabara, Schofield and Coleman It’s widely reported that the big Premier League teams only loan their youth players out with assurances that they will play a decent percentage of games, so it’s very likely Grabara will be our first choice keeper. I k...

Jul142019 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

4 standout performances in the Town v Hamburger SV friendly

Matches

I don’t particularly like friendlies, but I still found myself tuning in to watch Town play Hamberger SV on the club’s official live stream. Town ran out 1-0 winners in a solid but unexciting performance against a decent second-tier German team. Here are a few of the players that caught my eye during the game. It’s worth remembering that preseason doesn’t count for a great deal, but until the season starts it’s all we have to go off. Lewis O’Brien I was very impressed by O’Brien’s work rate and composure in his first-half performance (the entire XI was switched at half-time). He aggressively pressed the opposition, made some smart tackles and looked comfortable in possession. The year on loan at Bradford must have done him a lot of good, as he looks like a professional footballer o...

Jun272019 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

Which Huddersfield Town players want to leave, who might stay and which ones have something to prove?

Matches, Transfers

There's not been a Town game for months now and it still feels like there's a long time to go until the season kicks off, so there's not a lot going on apart from endless transfer speculation. To help my organise broadly where Town's squad stands at the moment I've put all our players into six categories. Doing this helps to show that there is likely to be significant comings and goings before the end of the transfer window. Every summer transfer window is vital to the success of the forthcoming season, but this year it's bigger than ever. We need to try to keep our best players, get rid of the players that no longer want to be here and bring in enough fresh faces to make us genuinely competitive. There also needs to be more focus on getting the right characters into the team and changi...