Huddersfield Town take on Derby tonight in a game that looked intimidating at the start of the season but seems less threatening given Derby have lost four of their opening five games and are without their potato shaped talisman, Wayne Rooney.
They’re still a good team and will give Town a stern test but our unbeaten run of three games will give our players confidence and Derby won’t be relishing the prospect of playing us after our victory over Swansea at the weekend.
Carlos Corberán will have to decide whether he wants to stick with the players that won the game on Saturday or freshen up the lineup after only two recovery days since Saturday’s game. I think he will mostly stick with a similar team but will tweak things in midfield a bit to suit playing with three central defenders.
Goalkeeper – Hamer
I was quite pleased with Hamer last Saturday. He received a lot of passbacks under pressure and consistently got rid of the ball without disaster. This is proof to me that his confidence is starting to improve as the old Hamer would almost certainly have overthought at least one of those backpasses and got caught out. He could improve further by consistently finding a man with his passing but I’m currently happy as long as he’s not giving the ball away in dangerous areas.
Defence – Pipa, Stearman, Schindler, Sarr, Toffolo
I think it’s worth continuing with the five at the back system that Town used on Saturday. The three central defenders all played well against Swansea and I’d like to see us continue with this shape.
I’m including Pipa and Toffolo in the section about defence but it would probably more accurate to describe them as wingers and put them in midfield. They’ll track back and mark Derby’s wingers when required but both will look to burst forward as soon as Town get the ball.
Stearman is having a bit of a renaissance under Corberán so far this season and is showing ambition on the ball and venturing further up the field when the chance is there. Schindler looked close to his best last weekend too. Sarr had a few ropey moments early on but got better and was very impressive in the air all game.
Midfield – Bacuna, Eiting, O’Brien
Swapping out Hogg for O’Brien can solve two problems that I saw with our midfield last weekend. Firstly, Hoggy was dropping too deep and wasn’t needed in that area because we had three centrebacks. The other issue was Eiting struggling to get onto the ball to initiate attacks. I’d take Hogg out, give Eiting the deep-lying role so he can pick up possession from the defence more easily and launch the ball forward.
O’Brien looked lively when he came off the bench and made a difference by putting pressure on the opposition and winning back possession. I think he should come back in and be played as a box-to-box midfielder and see what he can do.
Bacuna can then play as the more advanced as the midfield three and can burst forward to fill in the gap left by not having a recognised striker up front. Call it a false nine or a ten, whatever the terminology, he’ll play nominally as a midfielder but get up and support the attackers.
Forwards – Mbenza, Koroma
Neither of this pair are proper strikers but they are capable of playing this slightly strange, half-winger, half-striker position where they drop wide to cover the fullbacks out of possession but then push into the box when Town attack.
Koroma now has a goal under his belt, so I’m hopeful this will have lifted his confidence and he could really kick on from here. I’ve watched Koroma carefully in shooting drills and he consistently curls the ball into the corners when there’s no pressure but up until last weekend he hadn’t been managing it in games. It seems to me that he’s got the technical ability to score plenty of goals, he just needs to keep his cool when opportunities come his way in games.
Mbenza was unfortunate not to score with his left-footed effort that bounced out off the inside of the post against Swansea. Sooner or later he’s going to get a goal and, like Koroma, it could be the confidence boost he needs to go on and score more. He’s starting to look a much more threatening player and his decision making is improving when he gets on the ball. He’s not going to change over night and there are still areas for him to improve upon but the attitude he’s shown so far this season gives me hope that he will continue to get better.
How many of my predictions did I get right against Swansea?
I got nine out of eleven of my predictions right on Saturday. Nobody expected Carlos to switch to three at the back or to play without a striker, so I think nine is a reasonably good success rate. I thought Stearman would make way to allow Schindler back into the lineup but it was actually Frazier Campbell that dropped to the bench.
Bacuna retained his place in the team in place of Pritchard which I found a bit of a surprise given Bacuna hasn’t been great this season. It could be that Pritchard comes in tonight but I’d be reluctant to make too many changes to a winning team unless they are forced.
Tom Lawrence back for Wayne Rooney’s Derby County.
Always worth a goal against. 😥