Nastiness, The Radulovic Redemption, an injury crisis & transfer news – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 1-0 win over Greuther Furth

Huddersfield Town were 1-0 winners against Greurther Furth on Saturday, in their final friendly of their Austrian tour. It was a scrappy, bad-tempered and low quality game of football but Town just about deserved the win against a team that is technically playing at a level above them (the German second tier). 

Here are some of my thoughts about the game…

Another rough and tumble encounter 

The most memorable thing about this friendly game was how unfriendly it was. Just like against Young Boys of Berne, Town got right up in the faces of their opposition and made life difficult for them. The physical treatment we handed out was perhaps a bit over the top at times and Kasumu could have seen red for some of his challenges he put in while on a booking. 

After seeing Town lack fight for so long, I’m quite pleased to see this new, nastier version of Huddersfield Town. It reminds me of watching Robert Carylse play Begbie in Trainspotting after first seeing him as a mild mannered police detective Hamish McBeth (my up-to-the-minute pop culture references are why this blog is so popular with the youth!).

While European teams tend to be used to a gentile kind of football, I think a willingness to scrap it out with the opposition will be really suited to League One. While I hope the ambition is to get the better of teams with superior footballing ability, sometimes you have to win the battle on the pitch before you get the right to attempt the prettier side of the game. Too often Town lost last season because they didn’t fight as hard or want the win as much as the opposition, particularly in the closing stages of the season. If these last two games are anything to go by, I doubt we’ll back down from many fights in the upcoming campaign. Prepare for plenty of red cards and black eyes. 

Northern Football emerges 

I still feel like Town have got a bit of work to do in terms of their attacking play, particularly in and around the opposition penalty area but a style and a system is starting to emerge from these friendly games. Northern Football, so far, is a fairly loosely defined concept and both Kevin Nagle and Lee Grant’s explanations haven’t shed a huge amount of light on the matter, but I think I can see the intention from how we’ve played in preseason.

Here’s roughly what I think Northern Football means:

• Being aggressive and winning physical battles all over the pitch (as discussed above).
• Pressing high up the pitch and trying to win the ball back in dangerous areas.
• Running hard both with and without the ball, expect most games to end with both teams players blowing like they’ve just crossed the line in a marathon.
• Getting the ball forward quickly to try and find gaps to exploit when the ball changes hands.
• When a direct ball forward isn’t on, we try to play intricate, short passes to get up the pitch. This involves drawing the opposition onto us and our defenders being comfortable under pressure.
• The bit I’m least sure about is what we want to do when we get the ball into the final third. The fullbacks play with a lot of width, the attacking midfielders and wide players flood the box but beyond that, I’m not sure what way we’re looking to open teams up. Balls over the top for Taylor are a good option against high defensive lines but if the opposition sits deep, I think we’re trying to work the ball to the byline for cut backs into the box but our attacking play has been pretty uncreative. This might be a problem that can only be solved in the transfer market and hopefully we’ll bring in someone that can unlock stubborn defences.

Could this season have a Radulovic redemption arc?

This game was a pretty turgid affair, with very little action in either box and a lot of huffing and puffing from both sides (the pitch and heat didn’t help, to be fair). One of the few talking points from the game was how surprisingly well Bojan Radulovic played. There’s an element of grading on a curve going on with this assessment, as he was far from perfect but he did have more positive contributions than negative in this match, which I don’t think has been true of any of his other Huddersfield Town outings.

He played as a number ten, more or less, behind the main striker. This allowed him to drop off into midfield at times and link up play, which he’s actually pretty good at. He also took his goal very well, capitalising on the chaos Freddie Ladapo created in the Furth back line and dispatching the loose ball he collected into the goal with a clinical finish. 

One half-decent performance in a preseason friendly doesn’t erase all the poor gsmes he’s had in a Town shirt but it at least reminded us that “there’s a player in there” (how many no-hopers have we said this about in recent years?). It would be a remarkable turnaround if he did suddenly become a star player for us but I suppose stranger things have happened. 

And for those that question the striker’s confidence, you can’t deny that it must take a lot of confidence to leave the house with his current haircut. I can only imagine he told the hairdresser to give him a bleach blonde version of Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber, and the hairdresser in question wqs drunk at the time. While it’s a bit mean to mock his hair do, it’s nice not needing to mock his contributions in this game, so it’s progress of sorts. 

To answer the question I asked in the subheading, I don’t think Bojan Radulovic is going to have a huge part to play in Town’s season this year. But putting in performances like this may at least help to convince another club to take a punt on him. 

Random thoughts on individual players performances 

The starting lineup for this game featured Jay Sway, Cameron Ashia and Daniel Vost to make up the numbers. Presumably those that played most of the game against YB weren’t planned to start and there weren’t enough first teamers available. Initially, I think this host of youngsters hampered our efforts, with Sway looking nervy and Vost not having the polish of a seasoned pro. However, as the game went along, Ashia and Sway stood out among our better performers. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next for these players as they’ve played a lot with the first team this summer. I’d guess either loans out to League Two or the bottom of League One unless Grant thinks they’ll be useful for cover and extra options for the car dealership cup.

I’ve mentioned that Radulovic impressed with his cameo and Ladapo seemed to have a clearer idea of what he was about in this game too. Previous showings have felt like an episode of Quantum Leap, where Sam Beckett has woken up in the body of a professional footballer and doesn’t know what to do. In this game Ladapo used his physicality well and seemed like he could be effective at making space for others. And there was no sign of him asking for guidance from Al and Ziggy (another topical reference).

Whatmough and Feeney were a solid defensive partnership at the back. I particularly like seeing how comfortable Feeney looks on the ball. 

Sorensen was almost playing as a winger at times, he was so high up the pitch. But this is by design as it means Harness can play as an inside forward and support the striker and let the full back overlap down the flanks. 

Kasumu had a good game even if he threw himself into tackles with a little bit too much abandon and would have most likely seen red in a competitive game.  

Miller looks fine as a winger in this system and it seems like Grant prefers a more defensive minded left back, despite the right back being instructed to get forward. 

Owen Goodman didn’t have loads of work to do but did have a dodgy moment where he came far off his line and didn’t get the ball. A well-timed goal line clearance from Jack Whatmough saved his blushes but it was a poor error. On very little evidence, my suspicion is that Goodman is a keeper that likes to be involved, either by playing a killer pass or coming far off his line to intervene. Maverick goalies can be fun but also cost you goals too while also creating them occasionally. It’ll be interesting to see how he does for Town, as based on preseason, Nicholls looks like a safer pair of hands (literally). 

Is there an injury crisis?

There were a lot of players missing from this game. Lyndon Gooch, Ryan Ledson, Anthony Evans, Murray Wallace, Dean Roughan and Neo Eccleston didn’t feature, maybe because of other reasons but it seems the bulk of them weren’t fit. This is on top of existing injuries to Jacob Chapman and Rhys Healey that kept them out of the Austria trip. And Radinio Balker, Joe Low and Bojan Radulovic are currently limited in the minutes they can play because they’ve all missed a chunk of preseason.

Preseason has to be hard work for players to get them in the right shape for the season ahead. Unfortunately it seems that some of the soft bodies of our players have not stood up to the rigours demanded from them. 

I don’t know enough about what’s happening behind the scenes with all these injuries to know who’s to blame but if last season’s issues persists it means Michael Duff and the fitness/physio guy that was sacked weren’t the real problem.

My hope is that all those missing players were being rested as a precaution and we’ll see most feature in this weekend’s final friendly against Burnley. But it would be nice to have a full update from the club, so we know the nature of the various ailments that seem to be tearing through the squad. 

More signings required 

Some problems are solved on the training pitch and others through the transfer market. The lack of creativity and goals at the top end of the pitch is going to be much easier to fix by buying better players even if Lee Grant fancies his chances of getting a tune out the players he already has. Every preseason game so far has seen us look solid but uninventive, so it’s quite obviously the issue that needs addressing before the transfer windows shuts.

A winger, a number ten and a striker are the absolute minimum needed to round out the squad building we’ve done this summer. Another midfielder and winger would be ideal too. The rumour mill seems busy at the moment, with Town linked to various deals even if most seem to be at the early stages. It would be good to see a couple of new faces before this weekend’s game.

UPDATE: Kevin Nagle has all but confirmed a new signing (or signings) will be announced today. While Nagle’s enthusiasm sometimes leads to him overpromising to fans on social media, Maynard on Down at the Mac (a very reliable source of inside info) has also promised a busy day today (Tuesday) and it’s rare they get things wrong.

Burnley next

The difficulty level of Town’s opponents has gradually increased over the weeks and we’ve progressed from non-league Emley to now taking on Burnley, who were promoted to the Premier League last season after finishing second in the Championship. 

I’m looking forward to watching this new Town team in the flesh rather than over a stream. While Burnley may be better than us on paper, I think we’ll put up a good fight against them. After roughing up both our opponents in Austria, I’ll be watching carefully to see if we continue this nasty streak. Burnley are historically the masters of physical play and went up last season mostly because of their stingy defence and low-risk approach to the game. I doubt they’ll be as easily rattled as YB and Greuther Furth were.

Town’s defence has been completely rebuilt this season, and wholesale changes in this area of the pitch can take time to gel. This game should examine how far we are along with this process. I’d be curious to see if Grant knows his best XI at this stage and if he’ll try and get them all on the pitch together against Burnley. 

I’ll be back soon with another post soon, hopefully there will be some transfer business to talk about or failing that, my next article will be a preview of the Burnley game.