It feels like forever since Town’s first Premier League season ended in survival and there are still two weeks to go until the season starts. To try and reduce the boredom, I’ve picked a team of ex-Huddersfield Town players that are still playing, to see if the players we’ve let go could form a decent team.
While I think Town’s current squad would wipe the floor with this ex-players XI, there are a few players in here that I’d happily see back at Town. Particularly Chilwell, Pilkington, and Drinkwater.
GK: Alex Smithies
I was delighted to see Cardiff snap up Smithies from QPR this summer. I’ll give him a warm welcome back to the John Smith’s Stadium when they play us in August. He was a great servant to the club and was perhaps a bit unlucky to be sold before the David Wagner era.
LB: Ben Chilwell
He was only a young lad when he came to Town on loan from Leicester, but it was possible to see the quality he had even then. Left back has consistently been a problem position for Town over the last twenty years or so, but Chilwell did a good job when he was at Town and has gone on to become a regular for Leicester.
CB: Sean Morrison
I think Sean Morrison is one of the best central defenders I’ve seen play for Town. Perhaps not on the same level as Schindler, Kongolo, or Zanka but he was strong, mobile, and helped organise the defence. He’ll be another ex-Town man I’ll be pleased to see when Cardiff come to play us.
CB: Conor Coady
I seem to remember he’d been dubbed “The next Steven Gerrard” when he was in the Liverpool youth team, so he arrived at Town with high expectations around him. He did a good enough job in central midfield, but his touch was often heavy and he didn’t always have enough composure. It sounds like he’s improved in his time at Wolves, where he has played most of his games in central defence.
RB: Lee Peltier
I was stunned to see that Peltier is only 31, because he seems to have been around for donkey’s years. He was great for Town as part of Lee Clark’s squad that went on the long undefeated run, before leaving for Leciester. He came back for a second spell, where it didn’t work quite so well for him, but he’s done well at Cardiff since (Cardiff are starting to look like a Huddersfield old boys team).
DM: Adam Clayton
If I hadn’t been lucky enough to witness Aaron Mooy play for Huddersfield Town, I’d consider Adam Clayton one of the classiest players to play in midfield for Town. He can pick a pass, and strike the ball well, but he’s nowhere near as good as the “pasty Pirlo”. He played for Town during a time when we didn’t have that many players capable of putting their foot on the ball and controlling play, so he was a welcome relief to the string of midfield cloggers that came before him.
DM: Danny Drinkwater
Funnily enough, Town are rumoured to be one of the clubs sniffing around a deal to take Danny Drinkwater on loan. I’ve heard that he’s earning more than £100,000 a week at Chelsea, so it seems unlikely that we’d be able to get close to that. However, he did do a good job for Town when he came on loan to Town from Manchester United all those years ago, and has since gone on to become a Premier League winner and a fine player.
RW: Anthony Pilkington
Another of my favourite players for Town in recent years. He signed on the same day as Lionel Ainsworth, and quickly became an essential member of Town’s team. Pilks was one of those players that would make me lean forward when he got the ball, because something could happen.
I remember a belter of a goal he scored against Sheffield Wednesday, which absolutely flew in from outside of the box. It’s about 15 seconds into the video below.
Like half this list, he’ll be back in the Premier League with Cardiff this season.
LW: Tom Ince
It still feels a bit too soon to refer to Tom Ince as an ex-Town player, we might still be waiting for the cheque to clear! But he deserves a place in this list of former players that could still do a job for Town. He might not have scored as many goals as he could have, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. He took more shots on goal than any Town player last season.
The ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky famously said “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.” Unfortunately for Tom Ince, he also missed about 97% of the shots he actually took.
ST: Benik Afobe
He was a raw talent when he came to Town on loan from Arsenal, but his pace and strength were useful assets and he improved the more he played for us. He’s since gone on to play in the Premier League for Bournemouth, and also contributed to Wolves success last season when he went there on loan.
This summer has involved a strange sequence of transfer activity, where Wolves signed him from Bournemouth for £12m but then Stoke took him from Wolves 12 days later in a deal that starts as a loan but will become permanent in January next year. I can only imagine that Afobe’s agent has done pretty well out whatever has gone on there.
ST: Nahki Wells
One of the stories of last season’s transfer window for Town was whether we could keep Nahki Wells after we’d signed Mounié and Depoitre. Wells scored the goals that kept Town in the Championship in the years before Wagner arrived and contributed a lot during our promotion season. There was talk that he’d turned down an improved contract from Town the summer before promotion, so the club chose to cash in while he still had a year left on his existing deal.
I felt sorry for Wells last season, as injury and the form of Burnley’s other strikers limited his opportunities. It’s likely he’ll get more of chance in the coming season, as Burnley’s squad will be stretched by having to compete in the Europa League.
Who didn’t make the team?
Town have had a lot of players on their books over years and some decent players have been and gone. Many of them still play at a decent level. Here are a few of the other players that could have easily made it into this team:
- Oliver Norwood
- Jack Hunt
- Sean Scannell
- Tom Clarke
- Joel Lynch
- Danny Ward
- Jordan Rhodes
- Jacob Butterfield
- Jason Davidson (only joking)
Did I miss anyone? Put your suggestions in the comments below…
The six million we got for Butterworth was obviously as dodgy as hell – but what a godsend for Town. A lovely sum to make Wagner feel immediately at home and trusted. I wouldn’t have Butterworth back though – even if we were allowed to keep the money.
Smithies still lives local and will no doubt come back as a number two in a couple of years. Drink water is alegerdly available for loan at a fraction of his current wages,the rest are not good enough for prem.
I know he was on loan but my favourite player from our promotion season was Izzy Brown. Pure class. Turned defence into attack in a turn of the hip.I couldn’t believe it when we didn’t get him for last season. He’s been injured but I’d like to see him back where he belongs. At Town.
UTT
Good shout. He had a major role in our promotion campaign. It would be interesting to see if we went back in for him this summer, I’ve not heard any rumours but he knows our system and would slot right in. After Kasey Palmer was sent back early it may be trickier for us to get Chelsea youngsters on loan.
Joe lolley