Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Bolton

Huddersfield Town take on Bolton tonight in a rare Thursday night game for the Terriers. After an extended break due to the international games, Town will hope this game will be a chance to put things right after a humbling 2-1 defeat to ten-man Stockport in their last outing. Bolton have yet to win on the road this season and have a tendency to struggle to finish the chances they create, so they have their own problems to deal with. 

Lee Grant has a few more players available for selection in this game, after Mickel Miller and Anthony Evans have been declared fit, as well as Lynden Gooch now being futher along with his recovery from injury. The difficult decision will be whether to stick with the players he was using before the international break or to throw in these returning players straigh away.

Here’s how I think Town will line up…

Goalkeeper: Nicholls

Owen Goodman is breathing down Nicholls’ neck, after losing his place in the team following his red card suspension and Nicholls carrying on once the ban was served. However, Lee Nicholls has been the better of the two so far this season and deserves to be ahead of the Crystal Palace loanee in the pecking order. My suspicion is that Goodman will be brought in again if Nicholls makes a notable error but so far he’s been the more reliable option, so Goodman may have a wait on his hands.

Defence: Sorensen, Feeney, Low, Miller

Gooch’s return to fitness puts pressure on Sorensen for his right-back slot but I think it would be unfair to drop Sorensen, as he’s been in decent form lately.  Gooch is probably the better player of the two but he’s also very flexible and I think we need him higher up the field to play as a winger. 

I’ve been really impressed with the way Josh Feeney has handled himself so far this season. He’s steadily improved with every game and at times has looked like the most assured and level-headed player in our back line, despite the fact he doesn’t look old enough to buy a lottery ticket. Joe Low hasn’t been in quite such a good vein of form lately, with the Stockport game being comfortably his worst outing in a Town shirt but I’d still prefer him to Murray Wallace. Jack Whatmough is apparently “back on the grass” following his injury but isn’t quite yet ready to play in games. Once he returns there will be some difficult choices to make in this area of the pitch.

I’m not entirely sure what Lee Grant will do for his left back choice. Ruben Roosken has been the preferred option in recent games and he’s looked a good bit better in this role than he has as a left winger. But I still don’t have a great deal of confidence in him as a defender, so I’d prefer to see Mickel Miller brought back into the team. Though if defensive solidity is the priority, Roughan could be a third potential option in this position. All three have their strengths and weaknesses, so I’m not too fussy about who gets the nod.

Midfield: Ledson & Kasumu

I have misgivings about Ledson and Kasumu as a pairing, both have potential to be decent for Town but neither is creative enough in the middle of the park. We should be fine on the defensive side of things but neither has Herbie Kane’s ability to pick a pass that nobody else has seen. In fact, for Kasumu, simple ten yard passes are often too much for him to execute accurately. 

With Herbie Kane and Marcus McGuane injured we’re very short of options in this part of the pitch, so I don’t think we’ve got many other options. Anthony Evans is close to being fit but Grant mentioned how he missed chunks of preseason too, so we may have to wait before he’s ready to start games in the league. I have memories of being pretty impressed with him in preseason, so he could provide us with what we need in the middle of the park. But he failed to perform consistently last season and has had this season unsettled by injury, so maybe we shouldn’t expect too much for him. 

In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to loan out Tom Iorpenda this season, given the injuries we’ve racked up in his area of the pitch. If we’re still struggling for bodies in this area of the pitch in January, it may be worth recalling him.

Attackers: Harness, Castledine, Gooch

Marcus Harness has been in pretty poor form lately but I also get the feeling he’s one of Grant’s favourites, so I think he’ll keep his place even if he doesn’t really deserve to. In fairness, he does tend to be more positionally aware than most others in the team and has a knack for finding pockets of space and playing in teammates. I’m just a bit sick of saying I’d like to see more from him. 

Leo Castledine has been playing on the left wing but I think that’s been more because we’ve not had any viable alternatives in that position, with Redmond and Alves out for the foreseeable future and Roosken struggling to adapt to the role. I’d prefer to see Castledine play as a number ten, where he’s more able to float around in between the opposition defence and midfield, picking up the ball and attacking. Based on the games we’ve played so far this season, I prefer Castledine to Wiles in this role, as he is typically more involved and has the ability to score excellent goals. 

As I hinted at above, I’d like to see Lynden Gooch played out on the left wing for this game. While it may seem an unfamiliar position for him during his Town spell, he’s played more games as left sided midfielder/winger than he has played at right-back over the course of his career. Looking at the breakdown of games played in various position really shows how versatile he is. Goalkeeper and central defender seem to the be only positions on the pitch he’s yet to have a go at.

Striker: May

I don’t think Alfie May has been given a fair go at establishing himself at Town. I see him as the kind of player that we should build our team around but instead he’s been playing off the bench, foisted out wide or behind another striker. And on the occasions he has been played as our main striker, he’s had next to no support from those around him. This puts him in the uncomfortable position of either waiting endlessly for balls that aren’t coming to him or to go hunting for the ball back in midfield, which takes him away from the area he’s most effective. I hope we’ll now give him a run of games as our main striker and have everyone else trying to get him on the ball in the positions where he can shoot from. If we do this, he’s proven over his career that he can score plenty of goals.

I was quite surprised to see Bojan Radulvic come onto the pitch before Joe Taylor in the Stockport game; it made me wonder if this was purely due to what Grant wanted in that moment or if Bojan is now ahead of Taylor in the pecking order. Tonight might give another clue on this score.