Huddersfield Town will take on League One’s form team on Saturday afternoon when they play Stevenage at the Accu Stadium. While Town’s nine points from four games is a good start, Stevenage have gone one better and won four league games in a row before this match. Aside from their good run, Stevenage will also present a physical threat too, with our encounters with them last season being bruising affairs.
We’re still in the honeymoon phase of Lee Grant’s time at Huddersfield Town, so we’re still learning exactly what sort of a team we have on our hands this season. The summer transfer business was encouraging, Grant comes across well and there was an attractive, hard-working style of football brought in over preseason. But now we’re into the season proper, there have been some teething issues with this new way of doing things and it’s not clear if we’re just getting settled or if we’ve got deeper issues to worry about.
This Stevenage game will possibly give Town fans a clearer view of what team Lee Grant has put together this summer and how we will fare in the season ahead.
How will Town react to a physical opponent?
Aside from Jonathan Hogg, Town have been guilty of being a bit too nice in recent seasons and other teams have taken advantage of that. As well as trying to play better football, Town have looked to grow a bit more of a backbone with the changes that have been made this season. Stevenage are likely to be the first test of how well Town will stand up to a bit of rough and tumble play.
New players such as Joe Low, Ryan Ledson and Jack Whatmough have added a bit of muscle and bite to our team, so I’m hopeful that we’ll give as good as we get in this game. I’d hope that we try to play some nice football at times too but against teams that want to mix it up, it’s important to show you’re not scared of a physical battle either.
Town’s two friendlies in Austria were anything but friendly on the pitch and that was mostly down to Town being unexpectedly aggressive and drawing a reaction from their opponents, who thought they were in for a more civilised encounter.
After mostly playing teams that want to play attractive football so far this season, Stevenage are a team that will be more concerned with getting it in the mixer, so our defence will be facing a new challenge. I’ll feel a lot more confident about Town’s chances if we stand up well to this problem, as we need to be good at the ugly side of the game as well as being able to play nice football.
Are Stevenage as good as the league table suggests?
I don’t want to sound disrespectful for Stevenage, but I was not expecting them to be top of the league when they came to play us. In fact, I’d have probably had them well in the bottom half if I’d have done a final league table prediction a few weeks ago. But they are the only team in the league to have won all their games so far, so maybe they’ve been underestimated this season.
So far, Stevenage have beaten Blackpool, Rotherham, Northampton and Port Vale. While we’ve lost to Blackpool, they have lost all of their other games so far and the other three teams they’ve beaten have had similarly poor starts. So it’s good that they’ve started well but they’re been dealt a kind hand by the fixture computer to help them. It’s hard to imagine I’ll be talking about “table-topping” Stevenage in a few months’ time.
On the other hand, I think that Town have had a pretty tricky opening run of games and it feels like our three wins out of four will look more impressive once the league table starts to settle down, because I think we’ll see the likes of Reading, Leyton Orient, Blackpool and Doncaster will be competing in the top half of the table next spring (even though Blackpool and Reading have started poorly).
Will Town do half a job?
Aside from Blackpool, which was a game ruined by a red card, Town have fallen into a pattern so far this season. We have to fight in the first half of games to stay in them but then come out better at half time and win the game in the closing stages. But why the half measures?
Town’s squad depth means that we’ve always got good options on the bench to close out games, so that’s been a factor in a few of our wins. More importantly, in my eyes, is that Town look to be very fit this season and have been able to keep going for longer than their opponents.
Though, it does beg the question, why do we wait until half time to improve? Lee Grant touched on this in his One Show-style chat with Raj on the club’s YouTube channel. He said he tends to load them up with instructions at half time which they then go and execute in the second half to win the game. Like little footballing robots given a software update instead of a slice of orange at half time.
The fact that Grant has been able to diagnose the problem from each first half and provide the solution to his players is encouraging but I also wonder if he needs a way to communicate these ideas faster and in the middle of games. Otherwise it won’t be long before our shaky first halves mean we’re too far out of games to win them in the second half.
How can we feed the strikers?
Alfie May only had ten touches in just over an hour on the pitch against Doncaster but I don’t feel like he did anything wrong. Strikers need to be the focal point of our attacks, so he has to stay in position waiting for service, which against Doncaster, didn’t come. Unless you count those hopeful punts that he had to try and head against a defender that’s a foot taller than him.
Out of curiosity, I’ve gone back and looked at how many touches our starting striker has had in the games we’ve played so far this season. Here’s what I’ve found:
Leyton Orient – May – 25 touches
Reading – Taylor – 13 touches
Leicester (League Cup) – Taylor – 9 touches
Blackpool – May – 29 touches (13 came after Taylor was subbed on and May dropped deeper)
Doncaster Rovers – May – 10 touches
So in a variety of situations in these games, we’ve consistently struggled to get the ball to our main striker, whether it’s May or Taylor starting up front. While not providing our striker with service has been a feature of Huddersfield Town in recent years, I was really hoping this would be something we’d address under Lee Grant.
Neither Taylor or May are players that want to drop into midfield to receive the ball, so the responsibility has to be on the other players in the team to find them in positions where they can do most damage. Taylor has lightning speed but we rarely give him balls in behind to chase, May can get shots away in the box with very little room but we’re rarely getting the ball to him in those areas.
Town want to be a top team this season and have invested heavily in strikers in recent transfer windows. Finding a way to get the ball to the strikers we’ve spent millions on seems like a good way to help us get to where we want to be. I don’t want to keep on writing “grafted hard but not given any quality service” in player ratings for our strikers because it’s really, really boring to keep seeing the same thing happen.
In the past we’ve blamed our strikers for not being good enough but if a player as prolific as Alfie May is struggling to get on the ball then it’s an issue with everyone else, not him.
Want to read more? Check out my predicted lineup for this game.
Good piece TS.
If we can take better care of the ball and move it quicker from the very first minute we can get behind their back four and get May/Taylor in the goals.
Thanks Jay. Moving the ball quickly is something that we’ve struggled with in our worst moments this season. Either we looked rushed and give it a way too easily or we slow it down and become easy to defend against. If we can pass quickly and accurately, it’ll open up a lot of doors for us.
Is there ever a time when a team (and its manager) needs to be a little less respectful of the opposition and say “we’re bigger, better, faster, fitter, etc etc and I expect 3 points”? Is it not ok for the coach to say, as you’ve said, “well done, Stevenage, for your early results; but let’s see where you are come Christmas”?
Probably the psychology doesn’t work but it feels like one of those occasions when, behind the scenes perhaps, Grant should be saying, “You are better on paper than the opposition; you have home advantage; if you win your individual battles, I really want and expect you to stamp your mark on League One and not just beat the league leaders, but to win well.”
That said, I might still pick Kasumu who won’t shy away should it become physical.
Increasingly, I find that managers are just trotting out the same banalities when being interviewed. The softball questions don’t help but sometimes you really have to listen carefully to hear anything of consequence being said. But, privately, I’d hope that Grant is a bit less guarded with his players and will give an honest assessment of the opposition. I guess it’ll be a balancing act between building their confidence but letting them get complacent.
Kasumu instead of Kane would give us a bit more bite in midfield but we’d lose a bit of the passing ability that Kane brings. So far, Kane and Ledson have started all the league games, so it looks like this is a rare position where Grant prefers not to rotate too much.
This game is crying out for a big no nonsense center forward. The sooner this position is sorted , the better . This is a game young Feeney will / Should be on the bench . We need the defensive unit to be the most robust we can muster. Petty Kas is injured , I d start with him also. We need to start explosively from the first minute., to get behind there back 4, really unnerve them.
UTT- ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️
Is Kasumu injured? I thought he’d just dropped down the pecking order and McGuane has been the sub midfielder lately. The updates on injured players are very limited these days, so it’s quite possible he’s got a knock as he’s quite injury prone.
I think the game will be decided on which team dictates the way the game is played. If Stevenage dominate, we’ll be in for a battle but if we can get it down and play around them with intent we can play the kind of football that suits us. I’m looking forward to seeing how it pans out.