New rules, 2 strikers 1 slot, Koroma’s return & Northern Football – 4 talking points ahead of Huddersfield Town v Leyton Orient

After a long wait over the summer, football is finally back when Huddersfield Town open their League One campaign against Leyton Orient at the Accu Stadium tomorrow (Saturday). The summer break has felt longer than usual this year because Town’s season effectively ended in March when Michael Duff was sacked. While Jonathan Worthington took charge for the final ten games, we tailed off so badly it was clear our season was over long before the games actually stopped. 

Our opening day fixture is the same as last season’s final fixture, which feels appropriate, as that 4-1 defeat was as bad as any of the other humbling defeats Town suffered last season and repeating it gives us a chance to signal a fresh start. Town’s players were so mentally checked out of that game that it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had brought their suitcases into the dressing room, so they could be on their holidays as soon as possible. This rematch against Leyton Orient will provide Town with a chance to show how much we’ve changed in the last few months and how things will be different this season. It might not lead to victory but we have to show more desire and commitment  than we did back in May. 

As it’s a new season, I thought I’d try a slightly new approach to previewing games. Rather than reeling off the past results and digging into stats, I thought I’d just pull out the main pre-match talking points. Here’s what I think will be the main things to look out for in tomorrow’s game… 

Can Alfie May and Joe Taylor play together?

If Town spent £3m on Joe Taylor in January and £1.2m on Alfie May the other week, surely we can’t be planning to have these two players compete for the lone striker position, can we? But, with Lee Grant playing a single striker in most of his preseason games, it begs the question, how can these two players be on the pitch at the same time. It has to either involve changing the system, playing one of them out of position or having one on the bench and the other starting. 

Lee Grant was asked about how he fits these two strikers into his plans in the pre-match press conference and squirmed out of answering it directly. He talked about having players that are comfortable in multiple positions and needing a strong bench alongside having competition for places. So no clear answer beyond what we could have already guessed. 

My suspicion is that Alfie May is the most likely of the two to drop into another position and he could play behind Joe Taylor as a cross between a striker and attacking midfielder. Last season at Birmingham he occasionally played a similar role, where he had to fit in along Jay Stansfield. While Joe Taylor’s incredible pace could be useful out on the wing, I’d prefer to see him as close to goal as possible. 

After years of Town not having any decent strikers, it’s nice that we’ve got two that have the potential to do well for us this season. Obviously there’s also Dion Charles, Freddie Ladapo, Bojan Radulovic and Rhys Healey that are all theoretically competing for this lone striker role too but realistically, none of these players will be picked ahead of May or Taylor.

My hope is that both Taylor and May can be accommodated in Lee Grant’s system as we need all the goal threat we can muster. While square pegs in round holes often leads to problems, I’d hope that we can tweak the shape enough to get the best out of our two most expensive recent signings. 

How will this game compare to our last meeting?

I hinted at it in the intro, but this game is a perfect barometer of how much Lee Grant has been able to change Huddersfield Town in his few weeks in charge. The whole cast of new players will also help to freshen things up a bit. 

Whether we win, lose or draw, the most important thing is that we show the commitment that was missing from last season. I believe the business we’ve done in the transfer market this summer has improved the quality within the squad, so if we can add industry and effort to that ability we should be in a good position. 

Last season’s end left a sour taste in my mouth and I’m optimistic that this season we’ll have a team that fans can feel proud of. That doesn’t have to mean winning every week but the players do need to show they care about the result and have tried their best. Too often last season, the performances didn’t show enough pride or effort. We need to show that’s changed.

Will we see the birth of “Northern Football”?

Kevin Nagle talked about “Northern Football” in an interview with Radio Leeds after he’d appointed Lee Grant and was almost scoffed at by Oggy. It may have sounded a bit odd at the time but it’s since emerged that Nagle was repeating an idea that Lee Grant had used in his interview to make his pitch for the manager’s job. 

So it seems that “Northern Football” is the phrase that will be used to describe the style of play Huddersfield Town employ under Lee Grant. Once again, Grant has avoided specifics when asked to describe it but I think there’s an emerging sense of what it involves. 

“Northern Football” in my mind is similar to the style of football David Wagner brought to Huddersfield Town. Being combative all over the pitch, pressing high, moving the ball quickly and being willing to run more than your opponent. There’s likely more to it than that, but we’ll only know for sure once we start playing games. 

I’ll be interested to see if Lee Grant genuinely wants to play a type of football that’s different or if he’s just done a marketing job on playing direct and dirty football. He’s been given the manager’s job because the board see something different in him, hopefully we’ll see some signs of that special something in this Leyton Orient game. Going back to David Wagner, I remember the Sheffield Wednesday away game at the start of his tenure when we lost but the way we played was fresh and exciting.  While I’m hoping for a win, I’m hoping even more to see signs of something fresh and interesting to get behind. 

Which Josh Koroma will we see?

Josh Koroma allegedly did to Barnsley what Alfie May did to us last summer, agreeing a deal to join them and then ditching them at the final moment to go somewhere else. Unfortunately for Town, he’s gone back to his old club, Leyton Orient and may come back to haunt us in his first competitive game for his new club.

Town fans will have regularly asked themselves what version of Josh Koroma will turn up on any given match day, but this will be the first time they’ll be hoping for one of his half-hearted, anonymous performances where he drifts out of the game. We’ve certainly seen him do that often enough in a Town shirt, so doing it one more time at our stadium but for his new club would feel fair. 

Unfortunately, we also know that Koroma is often at his best when he’s got a point to prove and him not being offered a new deal at Town will most likely have left him motivated to show us what we’ve missed out on. There have been a few times in Josh Koroma’s time at Huddersfield Town where he’s been sensational, I’m thinking specifically of the home game against Sheffield United under Neil Warnock where he was the best player on the pitch, so we know how good he can be on his day. 

Given how a bit of needle seems to motivate him, I hope that Town fans give him a warm reception in this game and don’t give him the extra motivation to play well against us. It’s hard to know how returning players will be received but I have mostly fond memories of Koroma and while he was rarely consistent, he did obviously have quality and did well for us at times.

Are the new rules going to affect the game?

The start of a new season often sees new interpretations of the rules being brought in and the first few games will involve an adjustment period. It’ll be interesting to see how this season’s changes to the rules affect the game. 

For those that aren’t aware, here’s the new things we’ve been told to expect this season by the EFL:

• The eight-second rule – This change has nothing to do with how long your pie can be on the terrace floor before you pick it up and eat it. This change will mean goalkeepers will now have eight seconds to release the ball after having it in their control. The ref will raise his hand in the final five seconds and if a keeper keeps hold of the ball too long, the opposition get a corner. On paper, this is a softening of the previous rule that only allowed 6 seconds and could be penalised with an indirect free kick. However, this was one of the most flouted rules around and the extra two seconds and the milder punishment will hopefully mean refs clamp down on keepers holding on to the ball too long.
• New dropped ball rules – The guidance says that if the referee stops play, it will be restarted with a dropped ball that will always go to the goalkeeper if play was stopped in the penalty area and outside of the penalty area the ball will be returned to the team in possession when the play stopped. This doesn’t sound hugely different to the way dropped balls were being done before but it seems that this change rules out competing for dropped balls, which is a shame but I suppose it cuts down on the risk of silly injuries. 
• The “captains only” approach – The wording from the EFL was a bit strange on this one, but it seems that all players can talk to the referee but only the captains will be able to talk to them about key decisions. I hate games being slowed down by referees getting into mass debates with players over decisions, so this seems like a positive move but it may have been clearer to issue guidance that clearly states the ref will only speak with captains and all communication should be funneled through them. As a side note, this rule means that goalkeepers are now a bad choice for captain. 
• Time management – There is an ambition to provide clarity and consistency with calculating added time. Below is the table the EFL have provided to explain this process, which doesn’t seem much different to the current system. However, I have a feeling that the early implementation of this new approach will lead to longer periods of added time while everyone adjusts. 

• Threshold for contact – This is an important one for Town, as it’s been stated that referees will maintain a high threshold for what contact is deemed a foul. So this translates to refs being willing to allow a bit of rough and tumble play up to a certain point. As Town kicked both their opponents off the park in their Austrian friendlies, I suspect we’ll benefit from a bit of leniency from the refs.
• A less-is-more approach to handball – I’m still bitter about the penalty Bristol City were awarded for Ollie Turton’s handball in the season we were relegated from the Championship. The EFL’s guidance suggests refs will not give those types of silly handballs where the player has no way to avoid the contact and has their arm in a natural position.

There are a few more minor tweaks and clarification’s in the EFL’s guidance, so I’d suggest giving it a read if you’d like to know more. Though the more interesting aspect is how the referees interpret these updates and if they have an impact on the game. Tomorrow’s game will be the first test of that.