Huddersfield Town take on Peterborough under the floodlights this evening in a match that I’m really looking forward to going to watch. Town are in great form at the moment and go into this game after their best performance of the season last Saturday when we beat Plymouth 2-0. Peterborough are enjoying a new manager bounce since the arrival of Robbie Savage, having taken four points from his first two league games and won in the EFL Trophy.
Two teams that are both in decent form and have a preference for fast attacking football coming up against each other should be a recipe for a good game of football. So expect a dull and defensive 0-0, as that’s what usually happens when we expect a good game.
I doubt Martin Drury will make many changes to the lineup, so I’ve decided to do a more general preview alongside my team prediction.
Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Peterborough
Martin Drury said that he was going to see how the players were looking before deciding on his team for this game and he hinted that some players with recent injuries or a history of picking up injuries in Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday runs of games might be rested. After such a convincing win against Plymouth at the weekend, I think the likelihood is that we’ll see an unchanged lineup providing there aren’t any new injuries.
Fernandes has been managing a knee injury for a while now, so I doubt he’ll play the full 90 in this game but he’s so good I can’t see us resting him unless we have to. The only game of the season he hasn’t started was Bromley away, which we lost, so I suspect he’ll start but will be subbed early in the second half to keep him fresh for the game on Saturday.
Sean Roughan and Joe Low both started their first league game of the season on Saturday, so there would be some logic in resting either of them to avoid them picking up an injury. However, we’ve not really got any other senior players available to play in the middle of defence, with Whatmough, Balker and Wallace all out injured already.
Looking at players that historically have a tendency to pick up minor injuries, Bojan may be rested for Fletcher. I don’t think this will happen though as I get the feeling Drury rates Radulovic more highly than Fletcher and will want to start with his strongest available eleven.
Team prediction: Young, Bronkhorst, Low, Bowat, Roughan, Mumba, Collins, Humphreys, Fernandes, Radulovic, Taylor
Robbie Savage: Is he a good manager?
I find Robbie Savage a thoroughly unlikeable individual and someone that I’d go out of my way to avoid. He was a pretty average Premier League footballer whose most notable contribution as a player was having a poo in the referee’s toilet, where he was rumoured to have left the door open and provided the shocked officials with a running commentary of his bowel movement. On the pitch he was always winding up other players and getting in the middle of every confrontation and making things worse.
As a pundit I’ve often turned the TV off to avoid listening to his loud-mouthed and ill-informed opinions about football. I suppose some people may find his outspoken approach to punditry controversial but I’ve always found him to be tedious and ignorant.
So I just can’t see him being a decent manager given how much of a tool he’s been as a player and a pundit. I could be wrong. He certainly seems to have got off to a decent start at Peterborough and the way he’s emphasised an energetic and attacking approach feels pretty similar to Martin Drury’s approach at Town. I just get the feeling that he’s only got the job because of his relationship with Peterborough’s similarly outspoken (i.e. annoyingly opinionated) Chairman Darragh MacAnthony and can’t see him being a success.
Haven’t I seen you before?
As seems to happen in most Town matches, there will be some ex-players facing their old club in this game. On our side, we’ve got Archie Collins playing against the team he played 159 games for before leaving in the summer to join Town as a free agent. He ran his contract down so he could get an improved deal at another club, so it’s possible that the manner of his departure may overshadow his years of good service and he could get a hostile reception from the away end tonight.
Peterborough have an ex-Town player that’s likely to feature tonight too, with Josh Feeney spending another year in League One after he spent last season with us. I’d be stunned if he was given anything other than a warm reception from the Town fans as he was a decent but unspectacular player for us last season. He started well but, like a lot of our team under Lee Grant, faded as the season drew on and made too many simple mistakes. He’ll be a better player for the experience he had with us but I’m not particularly concerned about him either.
We saw Mickel Miller smash in a long range effort against us for Bromley earlier this season and Bali Mumba do all the hard work to set up Bojan’s simple finish at the weekend against his former club, Plymouth, so we’ve seen our fair share of spite-based goal contributions already. Neither Feeney nor Collins are prolific goalscorers but it’s possible one or the other may try to show their former club what they’re missing in this game by popping up with a goal.
Score prediction: Huddersfield Town 4-2 Peterborough
I joked earlier that this game has 0-0 written all over it but my honest opinion is that we should get plenty of goals in this game. I think that Peterborough will come to attack us and will try to press us high up the pitch. While this approach may work for them in spells, I think we’ve got enough quality to let the game be end-to-end and we can come out on top.
Fernandes has scored three goals in his last three games, so I’d back him to keep up his scoring run. Joe Taylor had a couple of very good opportunities to score at the weekend which he spurned, so I feel like he’ll be motivated to redress the balance. I’d also back Joe Low to pop up with a goal at a set piece at some point too. So I think we’re going to see plenty of Town goals in this match.
Martin Drury said he loves clean sheets more than his wife in his post-match interview on Saturday but I don’t think he’ll get one in this game. When you attacking quickly and commit players forward there’s always the possibility of getting caught out at the other end, so I think we’ll concede goals but, like Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United team, I think we’ll be able to score more than the opposition regardless of how many we let in at the other end.
I agree with you totally about Robbie Savage, but in truth every team wishes they had someone like him.
Like you, I’m not a Savage fan. He’s ignorant, ill-mannered, loud-mouthed, etc. when he first started doing 606 on Radio 5 Live, I thought it was an experiment that might last a few weeks; how wrong was I. And he’s no more likeable now than when he started.
For those of us old enough to remember, he played a sort of Jimmy McGill role in midfield. As you say, every team likes to have one of those but not nice to play against.
Savage totally average player, very self opinionated person. Useless pundit .
Although made his money 💰. Some one likes him. 😆😂🤣😂.
UTT- ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️
Maybe Savage shouldn’t be underestimated as a manager – he did get Macclesfield promoted , and was doing pretty well with Forest Green before moving to Peterborough
He may not be likeable – but does seem very energetic – and possibly inspirational to his players.
I had to read the first sentence of the last paragraph twice to make sure you didn’t think Drury would get a new wife in this game 😛
Given the injuries, the team almost picks itself (i.e., if all other players are fit to start), with the only real question being Bojan vs Fletcher to start resp come off the bench after 60+ min. I’d also go with Bojan, but there’s a definite argument for rotating in Fletcher too (and start Bojan on Saturday)