6 talking points from the Leicester home game

Huddersfield Town drew one all with Leicester in their latest Premier League game. It was a relief to see Huddersfield recapture their “terrier spirit” after a lacklustre performance in their defeat against West Ham.

Here are some of the major talking points from the game…

Kachunga’s “offside” goal and the case for video refereeing

Elias Kachunga nodded in from Zanka’s strike and had the goal disallowed. In the stadium, I thought the linesman had made a good call because he was on his own when he headed home. However, the replay shows it was incredibly tight and was most probably onside.

Two points could be the difference between survival and relegation for Town (or Champions League or Europa League qualification). It seems cruel that such fine margins could have such a huge influence. Technology has hugely improved goal-line decisions, so I would support expanding the influence of technology to other areas of the sport.

David Wagner mentioned the trials of using technology in Germany and he was right when he said it can cause more controversy than it solves. Yet, I feel that teething problems with these trials shouldn’t stop the Premier League and FA from investigating using more video replays and technology for key decisions.
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Town have strength in depth

As expected, Wagner changed the lineup for the Leicester game, bringing in Williams, Sabiri and Depoitre. Our starting lineups have been quite consistent this season, so it was hard to know how these players would fair on their first starts in the Premier League.

I’m pleased to say that all three were hugely influential on the game and looked completely at home at this level.

Williams shone in the deep-lying midfield role and provided extra steel to Town when not in possession. Sabiri took time to get involved but showed an intelligence and skill that is very promising. And obviously, Depoitre scored the goal, which required great strength and technique to swat away Maguire and finish in the far corner.

Our squad might not be the deepest but this game has convinced me that every member is ready to perform when called upon.
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The difference between Premier League and Championship might have been overstated

This might be controversial, but I think the standard in the Premier League is exaggerated when compared to the top-end of the Championship. I wouldn’t include the top six or seven in this assessment (whom we’ve yet to play) but the remaining thirteen or so clubs haven’t looked that good.

We’ve played teams that have been around in the Premier League for years and have either matched them or outplayed them. The exception is West Ham, but that result was more to do with Town’s poor performance than their excellence.

I don’t think I’m the first to say this, but I think it’s harder to get out of the Championship than it is to stay in the Premier League. I’m not saying it’ll be easy for Town to avoid relegation, but our performances so far give me hope that we’ll be able to give ourselves a good chance of survival.
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Are we watering the pitch too much?

This may seem like an incredibly minor point, but are we using our sprinklers too much? I can understand the advantages of a nice slick surface to assist a quick passing game but we may be going too far.

Two Town defenders slipped in the first half (I think it was Smith and Schindler). Neither incident led to a goal being conceded but defenders losing possession unexpectedly, deep in their own half is never a good thing.

Maybe our players need longer studs, but my suspicion is the pitch was too wet and they couldn’t get their footing right. It didn’t cost us against Leicester but it would be a silly reason to concede a goal.

Competition hots up to be Mooy’s midfield partner

Billing has proven this season that he can play well alongside Mooy, completely bossing midfield against Crystal Palace on the opening day. He didn’t have a great game against West Ham, so it made sense to give Williams a go against Leicester.

As mentioned above, Williams added some defensive steel to our game and also broke forward with energy and drive. He could perhaps have done better with the long-range shots he had but otherwise, he had a great game.

Then there’s Jonathan Hogg’s return to first-team football. He might not be fully match fit, but it was great to see him back on the pitch and mopping up the ball like he always does.

Now Wagner has a selection headache in midfield. There are four players that all arguably deserve a place in the two available slots. I can’t see Mooy losing his place, so that leaves three players for one position.

Personally, I’d keep faith with Williams for now, as he’s done very well when given a chance. It’ll be interesting to see if Wagner agrees with this opinion.
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Why are there so many empty seats?

The announced attendance yesterday was a whopping 24,129 attendance, which is all-but a sellout crowd. However, if you looked around the ground there were a lot of empty seats. In some sections, there were huge blocks of seats unattended, not just the odd one here or there.

Obviously, the club have sold these tickets but for some reason, there are significant numbers of fans not turning up and not using the Terrier Exchange scheme to let the club re-sell them. Could these blocks of seats be complimentary tickets or block bookings from companies that haven’t used the tickets?

I worry that the cheapness of season cards may have led to fans buying tickets purely to attend games against the big teams or maybe even to sell on the black market. It’s a shame that there will have been fans that couldn’t get tickets for this game when there were so many empty seats in the ground.

If you have any theories about what’s causing these empty seats then please put a comment below.