Matches – Page 5 – Terrier Spirit – Huddersfield Town FC blog

Jul152024 by Terrier Spirit9 Comments

Battle of the HTAFCs – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 3-2 friendly win against Harrogate Town

Matches

Huddersfield Town notched up their third preseason victory on Saturday with a 3-2 victory over Harrogate Town in a friendly win that was far more one sided than the scoreline suggests. Town played some decent football and showed some glimmers of real quality and structure alongside the usual preseason clunkiness that you expect in these games. The positive afternoon's work was marred by the late injury to Radinio Balker, who was stretchered off after going down awkwardly as he tidied up a loose ball. As we've seen in the previous two friendlies, there were wholesale changes to the team in this match, with a completely different eleven coming out in the second half. Hopefully we'll soon see players going beyond 45 minutes in a game but in the time the players had on the pitch, I t...

Jul82024 by Terrier SpiritNo Comments

Michael Duff’s system starts to take shape – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 7-0 friendly win at Guiseley

Matches

Huddersfield Town had another emphatic friendly win on Saturday, brushing aside Guiseley 7-0 in their second warm up game of the preseason after beating Emley 5-0 last weeekend. Obviously the result was secondary but the game provided a reasonable workout for the Terriers and a step up in exertion, as the first teamers played a full half of football each, having only played for 30 minutes a piece last weekend. There were some signs of Michael Duff's tactical work starting to bed in with the team too and the positions and attacking shapes seemed to be following a particular plan which I suspect we'll see a lot more of in the season to come. In this article I'll wring whatever talking points I can from a game where we battered a team that are several steps below us i...

Jun302024 by Terrier Spirit10 Comments

33 players used for Town – some good but others less so & 6 missing without explanation – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 5-0 friendly win over Emley

Matches

If, for some bizarre reason, you measured value in a football match by the number of players you saw on the pitch then the game between Emley and Huddersfield Town would have felt like a feast. The home team swapped their entire team at half time, fielding 22 players but Town went one better, switching their full lineup every half hour and getting through 33 players. So 55 players were involved in this match in total. So for those that attended in person and paid the £15 entrance fee, you only paid just over 27p per player watched - very good value if that's what you're interested in. Or 0p ppw if you watched it on the live stream on YouTube. Obviously, the huge number of players involved, the very early stage of preseason and the difference in ability between the two teams didn't con...

Jun52024 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

Which League One teams are within a two-hour drive of Huddersfield Town? (And what are the likely ticket allocations?)

Matches, Opinion

It's only a few weeks until the fixtures come out and we can start plotting potential away trips for Huddersfield Town's first season in League One since 2012, following their relegation from the Championship. And while going down is never nice, one of the consolations of dropping down a division is the prospect of some new away trips. Because let's face it, there are so many times you can get excited about the prospect of Stoke or Preston North End away before the sparkle starts to fade off these fixtures. And while League One might not be exactly packed with glamour, in the way the Premier League is, there is a lot of character and fun away days to look forward to. And it'll be nice to play some different clubs too, after so long in the top two tiers of English football. In thi...

May52024 by Terrier Spirit14 Comments

Going down with a whimper – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s final day defeat to Ipswich

Matches

Delusional Town fans will have had their hopes of a dramatic final-day 15-0 Town victory dashed yesterday, when Ipswich swept Town aside in a 2-0 victory that could easily have been more if they really set their minds to it. Town's relegation to League One next season is now officially confirmed and this unpleasant season can finally be put to bed. The last game of the season was like many of the other games where we played top teams in the division, Town had no answers against vastly superior opposition and despite trying their best, came up significantly short. Here are my thoughts on the last game of Town's season. Going down with a whimper Town's defeat in this game wasn't really a surprise but it was a bit galling to see how one sided it was. In August one team will be a...

Apr302024 by Terrier Spirit19 Comments

Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham – A relegation special

Matches

Unless Huddersfield Town beat Ipswich next weekend by more than a dozen goals AND other results go in our favour, Saturday's draw with Birmingham has confirmed our relegation to League One (though I suppose a more modest victory would be OK if Plymouth lose their game by seven or eight goals). My dad made the point that a 1-1 draw was a fitting result to virtually seal our fate, as it's the result Town have all too often ended games on this season, often in games where they should have won. This game was their fourteenth 1-1 draw of the season and like the thirteen before, Town had the chances to win the game but not the quality in front of goal to finish them off. So can we really complain about going down? I'm not sure we can, despite all the bad luck and injustices, we've also been...

Apr132024 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Bristol City

Matches

Andre Breitenreiter said the team needed fresh legs and a fresh mentality following the bruising 4-1 defeat to Preston in midweek, so expect a few changes ahead of today's game with Bristol City. He's not wrong either, as Town ran out of both steam and ideas as Preston ran riot in the closing stages on Tuesday night. Hopefully, a few new faces today might help to produce a more convincing performance from the Terriers, as they dangle precariously above the relegation zone with just four games left in the season. It's still early in Breitenreiter's time at Town but his approach to selection is starting to become apparent and he seems to like tinkering with his lineup. Most of the time there's common sense to the changes he makes so I suspect he'll look to solve the most obvious problems...

Apr82024 by Terrier Spirit3 Comments

A dirty win, an odd take on 4-4-2, a sneaky elbow, blustery conditions – Notes on Huddersfield Town v Millwall

Matches

Huddersfield Town scrapped away in blustery conditions to knick a last-gasp winner against Millwall that they just about deserved on Saturday. It was an ugly, ugly game where neither team covered themselves in glory but Town applied the most pressure and in the 94th minute they achieved their reward when Matty Pearson's excellent header was saved and Rhys Healey nodded in the loose ball. While Town's Championship status is far from secure, if they do stay up, this will be the game we'll look back on as the turning point where we went from likely relegation to having a chance of survival. Not only did Healey's goal give us all three points, it also gave Town belief, momentum and some good feelings at just the right time in the season. A dirty win - as promised Andre Br...

Apr62024 by Terrier Spirit3 Comments

Huddersfield Town v Millwall – predicted Town XI, opposition preview and guessing the score

Matches

Must-win is an overused term in football these days but I think Huddersfield Town’s match against Millwall today is one that has potential to define their season. Victory could set them on course for survival and anything else leaves them with a very tricky task with five games remaining. It probably isn't over for Town if they lose but negative results elsewhere and the morale sapping impact a home defeat to a fellow struggler could mean League One would beckon. On a positive note, victory would give Town a decent chance of pulling out of the relegation zone given Birmingham face Leicester today and either way it will leave them with a more achievable points target from the remaining fixtures in the season, not to mention the fact it keeps Millwall within touching distance too. ...

Apr32024 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

Huddersfield Town falter in the Potteries – Notes on Town’s draw against Stoke

Matches

Town experienced their 12th 1-1 draw of the season against Stoke on Monday. It seems incredibly unlikely that one scoreline would turn up with such regularity in a season (the next most common scoreline is a 4-1 defeat, which has happened four times). Whether drawing so frequently is a good or a bad thing will depend if Town can scrape themselves over the line by the end of the season. Just like yesterday’s game against Stoke will either be a valuable point away from home or two dropped against poor opposition depending on which side of the dotted line we finish. After domestic complications forced a hiatus from blogging for the last few months (practical rather than anything more worrying) I'm now back and hopefully will be able to post more often during Town's attempts to stave...