It’s not true to say Huddersfield Town have a “November curse”, but Town have endured poor results in all three Novembers that David Wagner has taken charge. With Town starting November 2018 at the bottom of the Premier League it’s going to be vital that he overturns this strange record of struggling as the nights start to draw in.
As it stands Huddersfield Town have a November record of played ten, won one, drawn one, lost eight in the David Wagner era. Here’s a look at how the last three Novembers have played out for Town…
A battling victory followed by three defeats – 2017/18 season
Last November Town won their first game of the month against West Brom, in a game where Town dominated until Christopher Schindler was sent off for a second booking. There was then a backs-to-the-wall performance where we managed to cling to the three points by keeping a clean sheet, following Rajiv van La Parra’s glorious strike to take the lead.
The next game was Town’s shabby performance on the south coast, where Bournemouth were reduced to ten men when 2-0 up. Somehow the extra man turned into a disadvantage, as Town conceded two further goals and lost the game 4-0.
One of our better performances of last season followed, when we were unlucky to lose to Man City at home despite playing well and frustrating Guardiola’s expensively assembled team for long spells. The month was capped off a few days later when Town were spanked 5-0 by Arsenal, in a game where Town never looked close to competing.
Town’s promotion bid stutters in – 2016/17 season
I look back on Town’s promotion season as an amazing year of commanding performances and sweeping aside the opposition, but we actually struggled quite a lot after our amazing start to the season. An international break meant we missed one weekend, but we only managed one point from a possible nine in November 2016.
A 1-1 draw against Birmingham brought our only points, with Cardiff away and Wigan at home both ending in defeat. I remember the Wigan game because we dominated but Yanic Wildschut caught us on the break and we were then unable to convert good possession into goals (sound familiar?).
Wagner’s arrival doesn’t immediately lead to results – 2015/16 season
It may be a bit unfair to include November 2015 in this, as David Wagner was only announced as managed on 5 November and wasn’t actually in charge for our three nil defeat to Leeds. His first proper game came after the international break, where we lost three one to Sheffield Wednesday. This was followed by a two nil home defeat to Middlesbrough.
Those first few games of Wagner’s reign offered Town fans a glimpse of things to come, as we played some excellent football despite losing to Wednesday and Middlesbrough. Boro were one of the best teams in the Championship that season and we outplayed them for the majority of the game.
This November has to be different
Town have had a poor start to the 2018/19 season and desperately need to overturn this record of struggling in November. Town face Fulham, West Ham, Wolves and Brighton this month and the outcome of these games is likely to shape our season. If we can get a few wins then we’ll be able to climb the table and bring some optimism back to the players, staff and fans of the club.
If Town continue their habit of struggling to win or even score goals, then it’s hard to see how we’ll manage to stay up this season. Luckily there are quite a few other teams that have had bad starts, so we’re not out of touch with the rest of the pack but this will change if we can’t start winning games.
I’m optimistic that Town can at improve on their recent results, as we’ve had some bad luck and our performances have often deserved more than we’ve managed to take from games. Momentum is very important in football, so just one bit of good luck could be all it takes for Town to go on a run which propels us up the table.