Huddersfield Town’s fixtures for next season have now been released. I usually look forward to this day as its a chance to think about the season ahead and plot out potential away trips.
It feels a bit hollow this time, as the season is certain to start behind closed doors and could well end with away fans not being allowed in.
While it’s not the greatest hardship for football fans, when considered against the wider context of coronavirus, it takes a lot of fun out of supporting a team (when there’s or been much fun lately at the best of times).
Anyway, after that whinge, here are some of the highlights of the fixture list…
A tough start – Norwich (h), Brentford (a), Nottingham Forest (h)
Town look to have a tricky start to season ahead of them with an opening game against Norwich, who’ve just come down from the Premier League, Brentford, who just missed out on promotion last season, and Forest, who will be expecting to be pushing for promotion this season.
These will not be easy games at the best of times and Town’s squad is likely to be still in a state of flux at this stage of the season. The only consolation is that the teams we play are likely to be in a similar state and will still be building up fitness and cohesion.
I don’t like being pessimistic but if Town can take three points from these opening games then I think we’ve done pretty well. It’s possible we could lose all three and that could be a concern. The fans are all feeling pretty positive about the new head coach after the suits at the club bigged him up but things will turn pretty ugly if we don’t pick up points early on.
The following three games of Rotherham, Derby and Swansea are slightly kinder but Derby and Swansea are likely to be strong teams too. In fact, five of our first six opponents are teams that will be expecting to be pushing for promotion this season.
Festive period games
The second thing I look for when the fixtures come out is who Town are going to be playing over the festive period. Here’s a quick summary:
Saturday before Christmas – Watford at home. Likely to evoke memories of that last-minute Tom Ince goal that was key to our survival in the first Premier League campaign.
Boxing Day – Barnsley away. It would have been an ideal away game to go to but it seems unlikely away fans will be allowed into stadiums (stadia? It sounds a bit pretentious, so I’m sticking with stadiums) by this stage.
Tuesday 29th December – Blackburn at home.
Saturday 2nd – Reading away. It’s odd that we won’t be playing on New Year’s Day but the way the calendar falls means we’ll play on the day after instead.
A relatively kind run-in – Barnsley (h), Blackburn (a), Coventry (h), Reading (a)
It’s hard to know what Town might be competing for at the end of the season but it looks like we’ve got a kinder end to the season than start. Obviously, we don’t know how the season will pan out but all four of the final teams we play aren’t currently much fancied by the bookies and aren’t likely to be at the top end of the league.
I’m a bit worried that Town will be in another relegation fight in the coming season, so it’s a relief to see that we’ve got opponents that we should at least be able to compete against in the final few games. It could even transpire that one or more of these games could be effectively relegation deciders (I know how pessimistic that sounds, I’ll try to be more positive).
Fixture congestion
Seeing the fixtures makes it clear just how intense next season is going to be. It will be more common to have two game weeks than not, which will make it tough on the players to stay at their peak fitness.
Town may fare somewhat better than others as we’re hoping to use our academy products more this season and therefore should be able to rotate players. Teams with small squads will struggle with the fixture congestion and could end up compounding the problem by pushing players into injuries through playing them too much.
Given the number of games and the shortened preseason, I think injuries and slow-paced games may be a hallmark of this year’s Championship. Doing well could ultimately come down to how well you can manage the fitness levels of your squad and whether you can grind out results from lacklustre performances.
✅ 𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝#htafc pic.twitter.com/IWPnijGAEW
— Huddersfield Town (@htafc) August 21, 2020