Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Notts County and pre-match talking points

Huddersfield Town host Notts County on Saturday afternoon and will be hoping to extend their unbeaten start to the season and to strengthen their position at the top of the League One table. I used to think league tables were pointless so early in a new season but now I think they’re very very useful and relevant. Town being top may have been a factor in my change of heart. 

Our opponents in this game are also unbeaten in the league so far, with three draws and one win. Two of those draws were against Luton and Leicester, so they’ve proven they can get results from the leagues most fancied teams. 

Here’s my prediction of our starting eleven and a few pre-match talking points. 

Predicted lineup

Goalkeeper: Young

Defenders: Bronkhorst, Balker, Wallace, Bowat

Midfield: Fernandes, Lesson,Collins, Harness

Attack: Taylor, Radulovic 

This game is the third game of a three game week, with our trip to Camrbridge last weekend and home game against Oxford on Tuesday night, so there may be some temptation to freshen up the starting XI for this game. After two wins in these games and some excellent performances, I think we’d be better going with a settled lineup rather than changing for the sake of it. 

Bali Mumba has completed his three-match ban for his red card but I don’t think anyone in the team should be dropped to make space for him, so I think he’ll have to settle for a spot on the bench for this game. That’s what happens if you pick up silly red cards, the team moves on without you and there isn’t always a space for you when you return.

Without having any insight into the fitness or availability of the squad beyond the obvious long-term injuries, it’s hard to know if anyone will be unavailable. Both Archie Collins and Bojan Radulovic are building up their fitness after missing out on preseason friendlies but managed an hour on Tuesday night, so I’d expect them to both be able to do the same again in this game. 

I doubt either of our new signings this week will be included in the starting lineup. Cameron Humphreys may get a space on the bench as he’s been involved in Ipswich’s preseason and should be close to match fitness. He’s also played under Martin Drury at the end of last season, so should slot in fairly easily. Samson Tovide was described as a signing for the medium to long term, so I suspect we’ll probably not see him starting games for a long time, if at all. 

Can Joe Taylor continue his red hot streak?

It has been a remarkable start to the season for Joe Taylor, with five goals so far and some excellent performances. It’s even more surprising when you consider it was only eight months ago that he was deemed surplus to requirements and loaned out to Wigan. That five goal tally should be six, if the goal he scored against MK Dons had been allowed, and if he’d been more clinical on Tuesday night he could have had a few more in that game too. 

It’s not realistic to expect him to keep scoring at his present rate (he’s currently on track for a 57 goal season) but if we can keep him fit and continue supplying him with the right service he looks like he can score for fun. 

When you hear coaches talk about football it can often sound like a very complicated sport (elbow runs, zones 6 and 7, pitch geography, periodisation, false nines, inverted fullbacks) but it seems like the change in Joe Taylor’s form has been down to a couple of very simple reasons. Firstly, the player feels loved and respected in the present system. Martin Drury looks to have built a bond with Joe Taylor, put an arm around him and made him feel valued. More importantly, we’re playing a system that suits his abilities and gives him the platform to shine. This isn’t rocket science, because any Town fan that watches us regularly could have told you last season we didn’t play to his strengths and this season we are doing. 

After spending a reported £3m on Taylor, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s capable of scoring freely at League One level but having seen him struggle to make an impact since his arrival in January 2025, he’s really turned around his Huddersfield Town career. I hope he continues this form for as long as possible.

What formation is it anyway?

In my team prediction above, I’ve put Town in a 4-4-2 shape, as that seems to be roughly the formation we played on Tuesday night as far as I could tell. But WhoScored.com has Town down as lining up with three at the back, with wingbacks and three forwards. A sort of 3-4-3 shape. I think both are true but neither tells the whole story.

Ibane Bowat looked like he was playing as a proper leftback at times ,with him pushing out to the left touchline fairly often and Marcus Harness certainly seemed more like a left winger than a left wingback. But on the other flank, Bronkhorst was pushed fairly high up and Balker seemed to be playing more like he was on the right of a back three rather than being a member of a two-man central defensive pairing.

The forward line also looked pretty fluid at times, with Bojan Radulovic being the further forward and most central the majority of the time but Joe Taylor was tucked narrowly in behind him and to the left, not really a left winger and more of another striker. Though on the other side, Fernandes was playing more like a winger instructed to cut inside whenever possible. 

If it works, then I don’t suppose it’s worth fretting about too much but I do find this an interesting question of what the real formation is. From one moment to the next it seems to change. Perhaps that’s the plan, to be able to shift and change the shape dynamically in the game to nullify the opponent’s strengths and to exploit their weaknesses.

Some managers rigidly stick to their system and even if it doesn’t work, they tend to just change the players rather than the formation. Others will constantly tinker and adjust to try and get the game to look exactly like they want it. 

One of the things I liked most about watching David Wagner’s Huddersfield Town in our promotion season was how it was basically the same shape and system every week. Each player knew exactly what their role was and the role of the other players around them. It was like watching a well-oiled machine where all the component pieces knit together perfectly. Drury’s approach is more in the Carlos Corberan/Danny Cowley way of tinkering all the time and adapting to the circumstances of each game. It certainly worked for Carlos when he was at Town, so I can see why Drury is taking a similar approach.

Was this a good transfer window for Town?

Martin Drury was asked for his opinion about Town’s transfer window and while he said he was pleased with the business we’d done, it also sounded like he wasn’t completely satisfied. Managers will always want better players, but my impression is that the work we did in this window moved us closer to the kind of squad he wanted but probably didn’t go far enough.

The fact we’ve been playing a young lad from the academy on the left wing in three of our league games hints that we have a real lack of left wingers. We’re also in a bit of trouble if Fernandes or Taylor get injured as we have not viable like-for-like replacement for either of them. 

I have a feeling that the “one or two more” that Drury wanted to bring in were blocked because we couldn’t shift the fringe players in the squad off the books. Herbie Kane, Cameron Ashia and Lynden Gooch were all reportedly close to exits but none of them came off. The saved wages and transfer fees those moves could have generated would have been enough to bring in the players we need to complete the squad.

So if we accept that the transfer business we’ve done has been positive but maybe not enough to finish the job of reshaping the squad, the question is: have we done enough? We’ll only know the answer to that question in May when the season is finished. If we have injury problems to the same extent as last season then we’re going to struggle to maintain a high level of performance but if we can keep the core of the squad fit and in form then maybe we can sustain a tilt at promotion this season.

Player to watch: Ollie Cooper

Notts County’s best player in their opening games has been attacking midfielder Ollie Cooper, who’s on a season-long loan from Swansea. He’s scored two goals and has two man of the match awards already and looks like a player we’ll have to keep an eye on.

I think Town have frequently struggled to win the midfield battle in their games so far this season, with our best moments usually coming from bypassing the midfield and going from back to front as quickly as possible. But Ollie Cooper tends to be one of those players that drifts out of midfield to join the attack and we’ll need to track him carefully. 

On a more positive note, if we can sit Ryan Ledson or Archie Collins on Cooper and keep him quiet then it will go a long way to reducing Notts County’s threat. A lot of their attacking moves go through him, so cutting him out of the game could be an effective way to nullify their attacks.