Predicted Huddersfield Town lineup, what to expect from Swansea and score prediction for today’s game

Huddersfield Town have their last game for a month today, as they host Swansea City at the John Smith’s Stadium. They will be hoping to put together back-to-back wins for the first time this season after Josh Ruffels’ brace proved enough to come away with three points against QPR on Tuesday night. 

Victory today can’t pull Town out of the relegation zone but it can help them to finish this part of the season on a positive note and put leave with more than one point per game so far this season, which is usually enough to keep you up. 

Here’s my preview of today’s game…

Predicted Huddersfield Town lineup

There are some tough calls for Mark Fotheringham to make for today’s game. He’s already confirmed that Tom Lees will come straight back into the team now he’s back from his Covid absence, Helik will almost certainly start alongside him but it’s less clear if Will Boyle will keep his place in the team. It would seem almost cruel to drop him after a couple of commanding performances but I’m not sure you can justify changing the whole system to accommodate him. And he might not look quite so comfortable in a back three anyway, so dropping him to the bench may be for the best.

There are dilemmas at fullback too. As Brodie Spencer has noticeably struggled at right back in recent games and was hooked at half time against QPR after picking up a booking and looking odds on to get a second as he struggled to contain Willock’s attacks. He’s still a top prospect but I’m not sure it would be beneficial to his development to keep playing him when he’s obviously struggling for form. Kesler-Heyden stepped in and did a better job on Tuesday night, so may be the preferred option. However, I think Fotheringham will prefer the versatile Ben Jackson, who is a bit of a favourite of the new coach, whereas the Villa loanee has been mostly frozen out.

In midfield it’s also looking a bit rosier, with Kasumu coming back from his suspension and most likely straight back into midfield. His regular partner, Camara remains absent with a hip issue though, so the other deep-lying central midfielder will have to be someone playing somewhat out of position. My money would be on Rudoni as he’s tended to be the backup for that position most often this season. Then in attacking midfield I’d be tempted to keep the faith with Brahima Diarra despite him being an obvious choice to drop to the bench for this game. I was really impressed with his work-rate and application on Tuesday night and would like to see more of him in this game, particularly as he could be a useful counter-attacking threat in a game where we won’t see the ball for long periods.

On the wings, it’s certain to be Thomas on the right, as he plays his final game before he jets off to Qatar for Wales duty. On the other flank I think it will be Holmes.

Then up front I’d persist with Ward, though he fluffed his excellent chance in the opening seconds of Tuesday’s game. Rhodes doesn’t look any better when he comes on, so I think it’s just a case of rotating our two strikers in games until one of them finds a bit of form.

Goalkeeper: Nicholls

Defence: Jackson, Lees, Helik, Ruffels

Middield: Thomas, Kasumu, Diarra, Rudoni, Holmes

Striker: Ward

What to expect from Swansea

Passes – lots of them. Swansea have the league’s second highest average possession stats, at 62.8% a game, behind only Burnley, who also starved us of possession in the opening game of the season. They are also the league leaders in pass accuracy, with an average pass completion rate of 86.7%. 

Having high passing accuracy and possession stats doesn’t always convert into being a good team though, as Town have experienced over the years with previous head coaches that have experimented with their version of turning us into a Yorkshire tiki-taka. Mark Robins served up some of the most tedious football I’ve ever watched when he tried to turn our team of cloggers into a Poundland Barcelona and Carlos’ early days were ruined with games where we couldn’t get the ball out of our own half because of our fanatical dedication to playing out from the back, no matter how many times it cost us goals because of sloppy errors.

In fairness to Swansea, they are pretty good at playing possession football, or at least they have been whenever I’ve watched them play. I think they deserve some respect too because the Championship isn’t a league that always rewards teams that have ambitions to get the ball down and play football “the right way” (I’m using quote marks there because there’s no such thing as the right way, but it’s what people say). 

Now might not be a bad time to play Swansea, as despite their decent league position, they have failed to win in their last four games, drawing three and losing one of those games. 

Their player to keep an eye on is their star striker, Joel Piroe, who was linked with moves to the Premier League in the summer but Swansea managed to keep hold of. He’s a potent threat up front and a tricky customer. He’s got five goals so far this season, which isn’t quite as prolific as the league’s top strikers but he’s still likely to be a handful.

Score prediction – Huddersfield Town 1-0 Swansea

I don’t think we’re going to have much of the ball but I can see us getting a goal from a Sorba Thomas corner in the first half and defending that lead for the rest of the game. It might not be pretty but at this stage we just need the points.

After the World Cup break, I think there will need to be more emphasis on developing our style of play but with such a lot of injuries and being bottom of the league, today we just need to try and get three points and concentrate on keeping things tight at the back.

Swansea will come and look to dominate the ball but if we keep our shape then there won’t be gaps for them to exploit and they can pass themselves to death. Possession for its own sake is boring and pointless, so as long as we get the defensive side of things right we don’t need to be scared of not having the ball for long spells. Providing we hit them on the break with speed and purpose when we get it off them.