Huddersfield Town were beaten 3-1 against Birmingham in their first friendly of the preseason. The scoreline flatters Birmingham as all three of their goals were due to Huddersfield Town errors. While friendlies are not worth getting too excited about, conceding late goals and making silly mistakes were serious issues last season, so it’s a shame to see more of the same in our first game back from the break.
There were plenty of positives to draw from this game and the early signs are looking good about Martin Drury’s approach. Though this game also highlighted some areas that need to be improved.
Here are my thoughts on each of the two halves and what, if anything, we’ve learned from this game.
The first half
Town’s team: Young, Balker, Wallace Roughan, Sorensen, Ledson, McGuane, Mumba, Harness, Iorpenda, Taylor
My first feeling I had when I saw this lineup was disappointment at Town lining up with three at the back and wingbacks again. But I suppose we’ve a squad with no wingers and a glut of wingbacks, so Drury doesn’t have a lot of choice currently.
At first glance, the first-half selection looks like it could be Martin Drury’s current first choice XI. As there’s around a month before the start of the season, I suspect we’ll see a very different starting eleven in our first league game. Hopefully a more adventurous formation too.
Based on their performance, Town were unlucky to lose the first half 1-0, Birmingham had less of the ball and we mostly contained them and limited them to speculative long balls forward. The goal was the result of Bali Mumba underhitting a simple pass to Ledson which gave possession away on the edge of the area and he tried to fix his mistake with a clumsy lunging challenge. The penalty decision was very soft, as it looked like Mumba missed both ball and man, but it’s not worth worrying too much about officiating in these sorts of games.
Matty Young did well to stop the penalty but unfortunately he Goodmanned it back to the penalty taker, Gray, who tapped into an open net. Young didn’t have much else to save otherwise but seemed fine in his first outing for us. He was comfortable in possession and mixed his kicking between playing out short and booting it long. He had one hairy moment with a misplaced pass but it didn’t come to anything for Birmingham. A 45 minute appearance in a friendly is not enough to make a judgement of him but so far so good.
Despite blundering for the penalty, Bali Mumba also stood out for positive reasons, with some decent attacking runs forward. One burst into the box could easily have seen him earn a penalty at the other end but the referee didn’t deem his tumble to be the fault of the nearby Birmingham defender. It looked more of a foul than the one he actually gave but we all know that Town don’t get marginal penalty decisions, even in meaningless friendlies.
Lasse Sorensen was another of the standouts in this half. He was the busiest of our players and made some incisive runs down the right flank. A lot of his best moments were let down by either a poor cross or running into trouble but his positivity and energy were good to see.
Ryan Ledson earned the “Matty Pearson Award for taking friendlies far too seriously” with some bad tempered tackles flying in and full throttle running. We saw two sides to Ledson last season, far too passive at the start of the season but increasingly more dynamic and influential in games as the season went on. This was a continuation of his end-of-season form with some decent forward runs and at least one decent shot from range.
I was less impressed with Marcus McGuane, who looked sluggish and negative on the ball. He’s very good at holding off players when he’s in possession with his forearm but these clinches rarely seem to end up with him improving our attacking position. He probably needs a good preseason more than most, after an injury blighted first year at Town but he looked a bit off the pace to me. No problem in early July but it will be a concern if I’m still writing the same thing when the season starts.
Joe Taylor’s selection as the lone striker and the way we played was a bit of a puzzle. Drury has clearly stated that he wants Taylor to stay at the club and it would take a significant offer for him to be allowed to leave, so it does seem he’s part of the plan. But we also saw a lot more of the problems that led to him failing to thrive at Town last season. Despite Harness and Iorpenda playing behind him, Taylor was too isolated at times and we still resorted to pumping balls up to him that he had no chance of winning. As well as playing the wrong balls up to him, there were also multiple occasions where we didn’t play him the right ball. He often made direct runs which needed a through ball but the players behind him would pick a safer pass instead.
There were a few occasions where Taylor did receive a decent ball, one drew a good hand from the keeper to avoid either a penalty or an open goal, the other time Taylor couldn’t sort his feet out when the ball came to him close to goal. Even in these moments of frustration, it was notable that Taylor didn’t lose his rag like he often did for Town last season. He seemed happy to be playing and a regular part of the team. Privately he may be desperate to leave but there was no evidence at all of him downing tools or agitating for a move.
The way Town built their possession up was decent in this game, the defenders played it forward quickly and everyone else made themselves available. I was less impressed with the quality of our attacking play when we got towards Birmingham’s final third. We lacked imagination and creativity. The wingbacks both played well but obviously they were starting from deeper positions than proper wingers, so rarely got in behind Birmingham’s back line to cut balls back. Iorpenda and Harness both showed nice little touches but neither had the pace or trickery to break the final line either. Add that to the issues I’ve already outlined with Taylor as the main striker and it feels like there’s plenty of work to do in this area.
The second half
Lineup: Alnwick, Whatmough, Low, Murray, Gooch (Kasumu subbed on at drinks break), Vost, Brierley, Sway, Evans, Fletcher, Sebine
The second half lineup was a mishmash of new signings, crocks who barely played last season and kids from the academy. Understandably, things didn’t flow quite so fluently for this ragtag assortment of players that won’t have played many minutes together. Even so, there was still an intention to press and unsettle the opposition and an attempt to play the ball forward quickly in possession. Whatever the shape or the team selection, Martin Drury has tended towards this approach to games.
This article is already far too long for a game that has little meaning, so I’ll switch to bullet points to summarise my thoughts on this half:
- Whatmough showed some signs of rust when he lost his man early in the second half but was fortunate to see the resulting goal incorrectly chalked off for offside.
- Fletcher looks strong, awkward for defenders and decent with his feet. He’s not really suited to the number ten position he was playing but that’s not his fault. As an out-and-out striker, I suspect he’s going to be a real asset for us.
- Sebine being picked to play as the leading striker with Fletcher behind him suggests he’s part of Drury’s plans for this season. He showed impressive speed and strength when he latched on to a lovely through ball from Gooch but lacked composure with the finish, which failed to find the target. He opened his preseason account with the last kick of the game, opportunistically converting from close range in the box.
- I have to confess that I struggled to differentiate Dan Vost and Ethan Brierly on the stream, so one, the other or both of them seemed to play some decent passes out of that area of the pitch. Hopefully it’ll be easier to differentiate the broccoli-haired skinny lads in the stadium than on a screen.
- Both the goals Town conceded in this half were completely of our own making. Birmingham’s second came because Evans passed straight to their man inside our final third. Joe Low did almost the same thing straight from the kickoff from that goal. It was disappointing to see more of this sort of kamikaze passing. Even more so when it was two of the senior players that have been here a while, not the kids or new recruits who could be more easily forgiven.
- Town’s goal was the culmination of our best passing move of the game. Some nice interplay out in the wide left area ended with a good cross from Brierly (or maybe Vost), Fletcher causing enough chaos that it didn’t matter he didn’t connect cleanly with the ball, then Sebine being quickest to the ball when it dropped.
- I’d say that Sebine was the pick of the academy lads in the team but I was encouraged by Murray, Sway and Vost too. All of them looked comfortable in the first team setup and played with confidence and ability.
Long throws
One thing from this game that I think deserves a special mention was Town taking long throw-ins at every opportunity. This feels like a smart option, as a well executed long throw can be as dangerous as a corner. When matches are so often decided by fine margins, it seems sensible to maximise every opportunity to get a ball flung into the box.
The long throw takers were a mixed bag. Lasse Sorensen’s attempt went impressively high in the air but the distance it went forwards was very unimpressive and couldn’t really be classed as a “long throw”. Even calling it a medium throw would be pushing it.
Sean Roughan was obviously better at chucking the ball a good distance and could reliably get the ball into the opposition box with his throws. But it was academy product Max Murray that really impressed with his ability to to fling the ball a long distance from the edge of the pitch. His long throws were excellent and caused a few problems for Birmingham.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Bronkhorst is another long thrower, so it feels like we’re going to see plenty of these in the coming season.
Injuries already?
The last two seasons have been blighted by injury for Huddersfield Town, so I think most fans will be worried we’ll see more of the same this season. As it stands, I don’t think there are any significant injuries among the squad but there are a few niggles.
- Herbie Kane and Cameron Ashia remained in Huddersfield rather than going on the Portugal trip, apparently due to minor injury concerns. More cynical people may suspect the real reason is that neither wants to play for us but I would never speculate about such things.
- Bojan Radulovic didn’t play in this game and was missing from some of the training videos that the club have been putting out. The commentary team were keen to emphasise it was a precautionary type of thing but Radulovic has struggled with minor knocks before, hopefully he’ll be back involved again soon.
- Ilias Bronkhorst was at the game, was technically named as a sub but was never intended to play in the match. The commentary team said something about him being behind the rest of the squad in terms of his preseason. So probably more fitness than injury.
- Lynden Gooch only played a quarter of this game as he also has a minor knock that is being managed. David Kasumu also only played a quarter of the game but he wasn’t said to have any issues, but given we played all of the youngsters from the academy, it seems weird to not pick a first team player for the full 45.
I make that five or six players that have some sort of minor issue around their fitness. Hopefully all of these things will be resolved in the next few weeks and Martin Drury will have a fully fit squad at the start of the next season.
AOB
I enjoyed listening to Nathan Clarke on co-commentary duty for this match. He has some interesting perspectives on the match and spoke well about his personal experience of professional football. His comments about his long throws during his Huddersfield Town career were interesting, particularly in the context of the current-day Town team using them in this game. He pointed out how having Andy Booth to aim for made his long throws look a lot better. The lesson I took from this is that we need to have plenty of big men to get forward if we’re going to make the most out of this approach.
Most of the comments I’ve seen about Town’s new away strip have been positive but I have to say I’m not keen. While the solid red back makes it much easier to read the numbers of the players, I prefer the stripes to continue all the way around. I also prefer more slender stripes to the chunkier ones we’ve seen in the Castore range.
I don’t know if it was a perspective trick or not but Birmingham’s second half keeper looked absolutely tiny. Was he a literal child? Nope, he’s 21 years old and is apparently six foot one, according to a football stats website. I suspect he might have been standing on a phone book when they measured his height.