Tactics – Terrier Spirit – Huddersfield Town FC blog

Jul252023 by Terrier Spirit3 Comments

8 young Huddersfield Town players that could make a big impact this season

Opinion, Tactics

One of my favourite things about Huddersfield Town’s 4-0 win against Stockport last Saturday was how the team that played from sixty minutes onwards was able to continue dominating the game, despite being mostly made up of academy graduates. Huddersfield Town’s transfer policy this summer suggests that they have confidence in this younger generation too, as it seems like we’ve been comfortable moving on experienced professionals who are mostly backup players when we’ve got youth players capable of providing the same role. For example, Duane Holmes most likely left because Brahima Diarra was deemed as good enough cover for attacking midfield just like Will Boyle could leave as Loick Ayina is not just potentially a better option but will also be on a lower wage too. This summer’...

Sep292022 by Terrier Spirit12 Comments

What kind of head coach will Mark Fotheringham be?

Opinion, Tactics

Mark Fotheringham has been appointed Huddersfield Town’s new head coach. He is the fifth of Town’s last six managerial appointments to come with no significant experience of being the head coach of a men’s football team. In fairness, gambling on inexperience has paid off half of the time in the past, with Wagner and Corberan both overperforming with limited resources. But we’ve also seen Siewert and Schofield crash and burn too. So we know how much of a gamble it is to let someone take their first steps into management at Championship level, where the games come thick and fast with no margin for error or time to learn on the job. Because Mark Fotheringham hasn’t worked as a permanent head coach anywhere previously, we don’t have anything to go on in terms of his track record. So ...

Feb222022 by Terrier Spirit5 Comments

Why do Huddersfield Town struggle against teams like Cardiff and how can they beat them?

Matches, Tactics

Huddersfield Town play Cardiff tomorrow night and will feel confident after beating the league leaders on Saturday and extending their unbeaten run to 15 games. However, Cardiff are in relatively decent form and are the exact type of team that Town have struggled against this season. A physical challenge against an opponent that is happy to play long and sit deep is likely on the cards and Town don’t do particularly well in this kind of game. Or at least they haven’t until recently. This game could represent an opportunity to show how much Town have improved over the course of the season and it will be intriguing to see how the tactical side of the game plays out. Don’t expect an easy win for Town It’s easy to look at the league table and think that Cardiff will...

Oct262020 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

Fascinating graphics reveal what happened in Huddersfield Town’s PNE defeat

Matches, Tactics

There's a Twitter user called @DymondFormation who makes amazing graphs for every Football League team after each fixture and publishes them for free on his Twitter feed. They're graphic representations of each player's passes over the course of 90 minutes, with each yellow arrow representing a successful pass and the red ones one that failed. The direction and the length of the arrows show where the pass started and finished. They provide a quick and easy way to analyse the passing game of any particular player. The graphics for Town's 2-1 defeat to Preston last Saturday illustrate some interesting points, which I'm going to dig into below... Kicking long doesn't relieve pressure on the defence Hamer having a 65% pass completion rate isn't a particularly enlightening st...

Oct192020 by Terrier Spirit11 Comments

Carlos’ lucky chinos, imaginative strategies, yapping dogs, a niggly ref & maximum effort – notes on the Swansea win

Matches, Tactics

Huddersfield Town beat Swansea 2-1 in a hard fought encounter in South Wales yesterday. It wasn't the purest form of Carlosball we’ve seen so far but it was the most impressive win under Corberán in my view. Swansea are a good team that have started the season well but we came with a gameplan which, with a bit of luck, paid off. Here are a few of my unassociated ramblings about the game... Getting the tactics right We didn’t start this game particularly well and seemed to invite a lot of pressure onto ourselves which led to several good chances for Swansea in the opening exchanges. Thankfully Jamal Lowe spurned the best of these and injured himself in the process, which diminished his influence for the rest of the game. Town didn’t sparkle in the first half but there was a steady impro...

Oct12020 by Terrier Spirit10 Comments

What is Carlosball?

Tactics

This quick answer is that Carlosball is the brand of football that Carlos Corberán is seeking to implement at Huddersfield Town. It's very similar to Bielsaball at Leeds but with a few embellishments to fit with Corberán's style. We're still in the very early stages of Carlos Corberán's Huddersfield Town reign but there are already clear signs of how he wants football to be played by his team. It’s possible that more will become clear about how he wants to play as we get further into the season, but here is what I’ve observed about the new approach from his first few games in charge. Man marking The concept of man marking isn't exactly new but the lengths this is taken to by this new-look Town is genuinely surprising. Players pop up all over the pitch to track their man, which looks wei...

Sep142020 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

6 revealing stats from Huddersfield Town’s defeat to Norwich

Opinion, Tactics

There is a wealth of data that comes out of every football game played these days. Trying to make sense of all the stats can be tricky, so I've cherry picked six statistics from Town's defeat to Norwich to try and make sense of the game and the problems Town currently face. Only 1 out of 12 crosses found a Town player Whipping balls into the box from wide positions seems to a major part of our new attacking strategy. Despite Town having relatively few chances to attack in this game we still managed to get twelve crosses off. The problem is that only one of them found a man. There were always plenty of Town players getting forward when we attacked but we consistently failed to find them in good positions. This suggests the quality of the balls in weren't good enough or the players in the...

Aug282020 by Terrier Spirit4 Comments

What’s changed with Huddersfield Town’s tactics under Carlos Corberán?

Matches, Tactics

Huddersfield Town have only played one friendly under their new manager, Carlos Corberán, so it's a bit early to draw too many conclusions about the tactics he's going to use. Having said that, Leigh Bromby has made it clear that we're moving towards a new "identity" built around a 433 shape which will be attack-minded and involve high tempo pressing. There were signs in the Bradford friendly that things have changed with the way Town were setting up and players were being asked to do things differently. Here's a look at each area of the pitch and how the positions have changed under Carlos' new system. Goalkeeper - playing out from the back The big difference with the goalkeeper position on Wednesday was how much we played the ball out from the back. Whenever the keeper had the ball h...

Jul202018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

How Gareth Southgate’s 3-3-2-2 system could work at Huddersfield Town

Tactics

The dust has settled on England’s unexpected World Cup run to the semi-finals and now we’re all looking ahead to the forthcoming season. One thought that has stuck with me since England’s exit from the tournament is how England’s tactical system might also work for David Wagner and Huddersfield Town. Here’s a look at how Town’s players could slot into the system that England used to good effect in the World Cup. WARNING: This might be a bit boring if you’re not into dissecting football tactics. Feel free to skip it, I won’t be offended! The formation England played the majority of the tournament in an unorthodox 3-3-2-2 shape, which was notably different from the systems most other countries played. The most common formations were something similar to Town’s regular 4-2-3-1 or the ...

Apr102018 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

Does xG explain why Huddersfield Town haven’t scored many goals this season?

Tactics

A regular criticism of Huddersfield Town under David Wagner is that we don’t score enough goals. Getting promoted with a negative goal difference last season shows how we’ve managed to turn the goals we score into results. We’ve also managed to stay clear of the relegation zone for most of this season so far despite having the second worst goal difference in the Premier League. In this article I’m going to take a look at some stats that might explain why Town score so few goals using the xG (expected goals) stats from the understat website. Is it the players? The tactics? Bad luck? Read on to find out. I’d like to apologise up front to anyone that’s not into football stats. I understand the arguments against getting lost in the numbers and how you can’t easily break a fluid game like...

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