Huddersfield Town take on Leyton Orient later today at the newly named, Accu stadium. Newness is a theme, we have a new manager, new players, a new system and a new sense of hope. While the raft of changes since last season ended all seem positive, today’s game is the first chance to see what this new version of Huddersfield Town are really about.
Predicting Lee Grant’s starting eleven is tricky today as Grant was cagey about the availability of his players, apart from confirming Anthony Evans will be out for up to ten weeks with a gammy knee. It’s also Town’s first competitive outing under Grant, so he may pick a different team to the one we saw against Burnley last weekend, as some players were apparently rested as a precaution rather than genuinely injured.
Here’s how I think we’ll line up:
Goalkeeper: Goodman
Lee Nicholls is still a Huddersfield Town player and could theoretically start today but all signs point towards Owen Goodman being our first choice this season. He comes with glowing reports about his loan at Wimbledon last season, so I’ve high hopes. Even if some of his friendly performances showed some erratic moments.
Defence: Gooch, Whatmough, Low, Roughan
Lynden Gooch looked very good against Burnley last weekend and showed a willingness to get forward while also not leaving the back line exposed. Lasse Sorensen replaced him in the second half and was terrible, his issues brought into sharper focus by how well Gooch had carried out the same job in the first half. While Burnley are a better team than any of Towns League One opponents will be this season, they did highlight how easy it is to get behind Sorensen and break open our defence. Gooch looks like both a safer pair of hands defensively and a more potent attacking threat, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of him.
Whatmough and Low were the central defensive pairing at the start of last weekend’s game and both looked pretty solid. Low is a huge slab of a defender and will provide a lot of strength and height to our team. Whatmough isn’t much smaller and looks pretty decent based on his preseason. Though Feeney, the loanee from Villa, also looks good and could easily start today.
Jay Sway from the B Team started at left back against Burnley and did a decent enough job. However, if Roughan and Wallace were left out purely as a precaution then I’d expect one of them to step in today. Roughan looks better than Wallace but either can play the left back / left-sided central defender role that we’ve been playing with under Lee Grant.
Midfield: Kane, Ledson
I’d guess that Marcus McGuane has been brought in as a first choice central midfielder but with him only arriving last week and not playing any of Town’s preseason games, I expect him to be eased in gently. Ryan Ledson will surely start after being named club captain this week and the choice for his partner will be between Kasumu and Kane. This is a straight choice between a destroyer and a creator which I hope will see Kane preferred so his cultured passing can be used to dominate midfield.
Attackers: Harness, Wiles, Roosken
Marcus Harness has impressed me over preseason with some quietly effective performances. He’s not a headline grabbing winger but he does do lots of work that improves the performance of the whole team. He runs hard off the ball to try to win it back, has a good enough touch to receive the ball in tight spaces and links up well with the overlapping right back and the more central attacking players. His influence may seem subtle at first but I think he’ll prove to be an excellent signing.
Ben Wiles is one of our existing players that needs to show they can fit into the new regime. Despite having respectable goal and assist stats last season, his huge fall off after Christmas needs to be put behind him and he needs to return to the form he showed at the start of last season. Leo Castledine’s arrival yesterday puts pressure on Wiles to perform but I don’t think our new boy is likely to start given he’ll have barely trained with his new teammates.
Ruben Roosken and Mickel Miller are now left wingers it seems. It would be more natural for these two wingbacks to compete for the left back position but Grant prefers a more defensive minded player there and both these two have mostly played as wingers in Lee Grant’s friendlies. I don’t think there’s much to pick between Miller and Roosken, they’re different types of players but I’d rate them as roughly the same overall quality. Miller is more direct and Roosken is a bit more of a skilful dribbler but they’re both decent options. Though I’m waiting to be convinced that they’re both capable of creating enough from wide areas to be considered proper wingers.
Striker: May
I talked in my match preview about whether Joe Taylor and Alfie May can play together in Lee Grant’s system. I hope they can, because it makes sense to have your most potent threats on the pitch at the same time. However, for this game I think Grant will play it safe with round pegs in round holes, so that means picking one to start and the other being likely to come off the bench in the second half.
We don’t yet know who Lee Grant sees as his main striker but I’d expect Alfie May to be given the nod based on his experience and historic scoring record. May featured briefly in the new documentary about Birmingham under Tom Brady and he came out of it very well. He seems like a good natured and fun personality who still takes his job of scoring goals seriously. Tom Brady, one of the most successful sportsmen on the planet, said he liked Alfie May’s juice, which I’m pretty sure was a complement.
We need another striker and a winger with pace to cross the ball
I’d definitely agree with the winger being needed. Though with strikers, we have around six players competing for one starting position. So we need to shift some out before bringing anyone in. But having said that, I’d love us to have a big target man to bring off the bench like Wrexham used Fletcher last season.
I would start with Taylor as the main striker with May, instead of Wiles, as the number 10. But, the problem here is that I am not sure both can last 90 minutes with the style web play. That then creates the problem of who do we replace them with, probably Charles. We have more attacking midfielders than quality strikers. So I think you are probably correct.
If Harness doesn’t shake off the knock that saw him substituted, the obvious change would be to play Taylor up front and May in the gap Harness leaves behind. So we could see that this weekend.
Good win for Town . Every one looked fit , plus they played to a game plan . The bench looked stronger than last year . Although still think we require another right sided winger. Possibly another Central defender.
Hope the 2 Town players who came off injured are ok 👌.
UTT – ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️
MICHEl.Miller
And Ruben Roosken really cuught the eye
As best two players combining well and puting clevrr moves together
Herbie Kane was also.very good
Good allround petformance clean sheet
Good win onwards and upwards .
Nobody let themselves down but I’d agree with your choices for standout players, though I’d probably add Harness to the list too.
The noises front Lee Grant suggest we’ll only bring in new players if great deals come along, it doesn’t sound like they’re actively looking. That will hopefully change if we can move on some of the deadwood and use the money saved to add quality.
Can sombody please get the PA system
Fixed it is absolutly useless it was the same in the Burnley friendlynas today
In two completly different areas of the ground please get it sorted it is appallingly
Poor .
There’s something odd about the laws of physics in our stadium regarding the sound of the speaker system. It’s been a problem for ages and every change seems to fix it for some and make it worse for others. Maybe it’s just too expensive to fix properly, as I’d rather we signed another winger than a new sound system.
TS. seems you were listening through a crack in the door at team selection time. 10 out of 11 of your selections correct! Generally I was satisfied overall but as LG said room for improvement. Too many loose passes at times. I thought Harnesses energy and effort was great but it was sprinkled with a few hospital passes to his team mates. Both Watmough and Low got huge distance on clearing headers and are unlikely to be bullied plus we have Feeney another big lad waiting on the wings. Big at the back but small up front I could see Radulovic being used tactically on occasions that’s If he isn’t loaned out or given away. Healey is another light weight if he is ever gets fit. Let’s see how we shape up next Saturday.against Reading . Hopefully equally
positive.
Thanks David. I’d love to say I have an inside source for my team news or an incredible intuition but given my history of wayward predications, this was a case of a stopped clock being right every so often.
I’m not sure about Radulovic, he’s been so poor in the past for Town but I suppose everyone deserves a second chance and it’s possible that Grant can get a tune out of him.