Brodie Spencer and Michael Duff faced the press pack in advance of Town’s first home game of their League One campaign against Stevenage on Saturday afternoon.
As the club only publish their pre-match press conferences in video format, I thought I’d experiment with summarising the main things discussed in bullet points. Obviously you’d really need to watch the full press conference if you want to hear everything said but I thought a quick and easily digestible summary might be helpful to some fans. Let me know in the comments if this is the kind of thing you’d like to see more of.
Brodie Spencer’s comments:
- Spencer thinks he could have done better in the first game but acknowledges he’s adjusting to a new position.
- Duff wants positivity and fight from his players.
- There’s a new, winning atmosphere around Town since Duff came in. The team is also more together.
- The fans are giving the players a bit of an extra push with their positivity too.
- More talk about trying to win both halves of each game.
- Brodie has known Callum Marshall since he was 14 or 15 through the Northern Ireland international setup. They exchanged text messages before he signed and Agent Spencer put in a good word for us. They were actually roommates before Spencer moved to England, Marshall was hopeless on the domestic front but is a decent footballer.
- When asked if there were any plans for him and Marshall to live together again, Spencer did not sound keen on the idea at all. He seemed mortified by the suggestion, so I think he was perhaps downplaying how messy Marshall was when they last lived together.
- Spencer is happy to have another year added to his contract and glad to have that pressure removed of his contract running out. He’s glad to feel wanted.
- His aim for this season is to play as many games as possible.
- Spencer believes there’s enough quality in the squad to be challenging for promotion.
- Spencer likes the centre back role under Duff as he likes getting forward which this system gives him licence to do.
- Spencer explained that Duff expects defenders to go one-on-one with attackers because the wingbacks push up. It’s the risk of the system.
- Expecting a different challenge against Stevenage and will setup to get a result against them.
- Duff is very detailed in his coaching of the defenders and Spencer is taking in as much as he can from the new head coach.
- Asked about whether he likes playing left of central defence, he says it’s an interesting challenge.
Michael Duff’s comments:
- Duff is happy to have made it through the first round of the league cup. He’s not ecstatic to have drawn Walsall away but glad it’s not another League One team.
- Pleased with the performance and glad to have a selection headache going into this weekend thanks to the way we played.
- His job isn’t to keep everyone happy but he doesn’t like disappointing the players that are giving him everything. Some of the players not getting in are doing all the right things
- Still some decisions to make on the starting eleven for Saturday’s game. Glad that there are some options to change the game if things aren’t going well without diluting the quality on the pitch.
- Stevenage expected to be a very different challenge to Peterborough. Stevenage are effective and Duff doesn’t judge them for their direct approach because it works for them.
- Expecting a big crowd but knows that teams won’t roll over. Birmiginham had a bloody nose against Reading and we could experience the same thing.
- Kevin Nagle expected at the weekend. Duff talks to him once a week for fifteen to twenty minutes.
- Transfers: Nothing imminent (though he said that last week and Marshall signed the day after).
- Recruitment comes both from Duff and names are suggested to him. It goes both ways.
- Transfer business is starting to heat up because Premier League clubs are starting to let players go.
- Might be some players going out on loan if they aren’t going to get much game time. Even players that don’t choose to go out on loan will still get to train for the first team but they might not get many opportunities to play games. Duff will be honest with them and treat them decently. He doesn’t want a bloated squad where it’s impossible to keep everyone happy.
- No specific tactic to start games quickly but it just worked out that way on Tuesday. Duff was very impressed with the play from kickoff against Morecambe.
- Duff gives the players plenty of time off to recover and rest after games. But then works them hard when they’re in the building.
- Duff uses his own bad year last year as an example of why hard work matters: he had a tough time at Swansea but doesn’t lose sleep about that experience because he knows it wasn’t because of a lack of hard work. He wants the players to be able to say the same. If things go against us and we don’t get results, that’s OK, as long as we can say it wasn’t because we didn’t work hard enough.
- The coaches watch back videos of training every day. Then they’ll see what worked and didn’t, so they are constantly improving and observing what’s going on.
- On the stadium renovations: Painting the ground doesn’t score you goals. But if the fans are energised, it energises the players and it might make a difference.
- Sorensen, Kane, Evans – All played in average League One clubs last season. This shows that this league is full of decent players and we shouldn’t take success for granted.
Great idea!
Thanks Nick!
Good idea TS and wouldn’t be averse to an odd comment from you on the proceedings also.
This article was bashed out fairly quickly as I was watching along to the press conference. If I get chance to do the next one I’ll add a bit of commentary alongside the things said. Thanks for the suggestion.
Useful summary. Thanks for saving me the ordeal of having to listen to them.
Love it!
From France it Is Always with pleasure that through your blog I follow the news of our dear ” Terriers”.
Have a good Season with the HTFC.
Thank you for your analyses, interviews And reports…
From a French supporter, regards to you…
To read to you…. 🙋🟦⬜🐕
Thanks Bob. It’s nice to know that my blog is being read across the channel. Are you from Huddersfield and living in France or a French native who has become a Huddersfield Town fan? The club are desperate to grow our fanbase outside of West Yorkshire, so they’ll be glad to know there are people taking an interest from afar.
Yes, I’m French but I lived in Huddersfield for a few Years. We were going to see the “Terriers” play. It wasat the Time of the Alfred McAlpine Stadium…Since Then I have followed the résults and the History of HTFC…I have Always found the club friendly…I Was there When Steve Bruce, Peter Jackson And Lou Macari were coaches….There Was the excellent Scottish player Tom Cowan And a very good Belgian player whose name I Forgotten ?
I recently discovered your blog And it allows me to better follow all the information concernant the “Terriers”.
I Hope the guys will quickly return to the summits…friendships….In France I support Stade Brestois…🙋
That was around the time I started going to Town games properly too. The Belgian player may have been the goalkeeper Nico Vaessen or there was the Dutch player Dean Gorre from around that time, who was my favourite player back then.
It’s interesting that you’re a Stade Brestois fan, as they had the ex-Terrier Steve Mounie playing for them until this summer. He played for us in the Premier League days and was a big personality, so is remembered fondly by most Town fans.
Thanks Dave!
Admit it, the positivity if feeding though and suddenly you’re much more fired up for talking about Town than you have been in recent seasons. (I fully get it!) very nice to get additional perspectives though.
Definitely hoping your negative season preview was overly negative though ^_^
You’ve absolutely right Mike, I’ve got a lot more enthusiasm for blogging about Town at the moment. Though I’ve written about Town through many of the tough times too, though not quite as prolifically!
So far it seems my optimistic preview was the closest to being accurate. There’ll always be bumps along the way, but it’s just nice to see us being positive and having a go for once.
I feel about these interviews like I did about the interviews with British athletes during the Olympics – predictable questions with predictable answers, not really saying very much (e.g. in answer to the question whether he’s ok about playing left central defense, Spencer is hardly likely to say “not really” and talk himself out of a starting position; and do I care whether Spencer and Marshall decide to homeshare?). They’re extremely dull.
I can see your point, it’s hardly Front-Nixon during these interviews. I have some sympathy though, the press members have to maintain good relations with the staff at the club so can’t haul them over the coals and the players and coaches are given media training specifically to avoid saying anything particualrly interesting (technically controversial but it’s essentially the same thing). Neil Warnock’s press conferences were like watching him doing an after dinner speech he was that good but few others have reached his level. Carlos Corberan was very dry and technical, Danny Cowley used too many buzzwords, Mark Fotheringham was entertaining because he sounded like he’d lost the plot most weeks. I think Darren Moore was the worst because he would take forever to say almost nothing. I felt for the journalists who had to try and cobble together articles from his nonesense answers to their questions. Duff isn’t too bad, he uses a lot of stock phrases but I think that’s what he’s like all that time, he likes to use repeated phrases to emphasise his points to get his message across. A lot of the time you’ve got to listen carefully to read between the lines. Like when he talks about how well a player has been training, it suggests that particular player might have not been training well in the past or might have a reputation for not training well.