Huddersfield Town are in South Wales today to take on Swansea. After losing last week it feels like today’s game could offer a sign of whether the Forest game was a blip or if our previous good form was actually just a prolonged period of good fortune that has now come to an end. Is Carlos the messiah or a very naughty boy? It still feels hard to tell.
I’m not going to just talk about today’s game in this post. A busy few days has meant that I’ve not been able to find time to write articles about Town’s deserved defeat to Notts Forest last weekend or Lewis O’Brien’s new contract that was announced earlier this week. So, inspired by those secured loan adverts of yesteryear, I’m going to consolidate all my Town ramblings on these subjects into one easy to manage article.
Losing to Forest
Like Town’s players and coaches, I was stunned by how well Forest played against us last weekend. As many fans predicted, our opponents experienced a bounce following the sacking of their manager and we were unlucky to be their next opponent. Rather than a hopeless team that hadn’t won all season, we saw a committed and talented team execute a gameplan that exploited our weaknesses to great effect.
We’ve been playing with wingbacks high up the pitch all season yet still don’t seem to have found an effective way to stop opposition wingers repeatedly getting in behind them and pulling our defence out of shape. Forest did this time and time again in the first half last weekend, particularly down our left flank, before they scored the opener.
It feels a bit futile to dwell too much more on this defeat, other than to say too many of our attacking players had bad afternoons and we therefore were completely bereft of creativity once Forest decided to sit back and soak up the limited pressure we could create.
Lewis O’Brien’s new contract
It feels like a coup to have managed to get O’Brien to sign a new contract after such a lot of interest came in for him during the summer. Obviously such a deal doesn’t guarantee we’ll see him at Town until 2025, but it does mean that Town have a stronger bargaining position if further interest materialises in future transfer windows.
I’d be curious to know the full story about the contract negotiations, as O’Brien’s previous contract was agreed when he returned from Bradford on loan and would most likely have been a pretty meagre wage compared to players of similar ability in the Championship. Had Town not bothered to try and tie him down previously? Had he been resisting a new deal in order to give him a better chance of a lucrative move? I think the latter is more likely, so we must have done something to make a new deal attractive to him.
Both player and club have been open about the fact he wanted to move in the summer and could have gone if the right bid was made. With that in mind, I suspect this new deal, as well as including a hike in pay, could have a release clause that will mean the club are obliged to accept bids over a certain value. At least if this has been agreed then we shouldn’t have another boring transfer saga, as clubs will either have to pay the release clause or go away.
Hopefully this new deal will mean he can concentrate on his football now. I really rate O’Brien as a player but he can be substantially better than his current level. His ability to drive the ball forward is great but he should score more goals and his tendency to misplace simple passes needs to improve. If he sorts out these areas of his game then he will be ready to step up to Premier League level but for now I think he’s better playing regular Championship football.
Should Town stick or twist against Swansea?
Today’s game presents some tricky decisions to Carlos. Should he stick with the tactics and players that have done well in all but two of our games this season or should we switch to something different?
Swansea like to play out from the back and try to hog possession. This means we could either push up and try to pressure them into mistakes by pressing high or we could sit back and keep things tight and hope they can’t break them down.
When we have the ball we’ll have to decide if we want to try and build up patiently ourselves and try to play pretty football or if we should instead try to play on the counter and try to get in behind them.
I think one of the key differences between this season and last is Carlos’ willingness to be flexible with his footballing principles. If all things are equal, I believe he would prefer to play tippy tappy football where we have 70% possession and try to break opponents down by passing them to death. But he’s also realised that a relatively limited squad against decent teams can’t just keep walking onto the same punches and has started to think more pragmatically when required.
Swansea aren’t exactly giants in this league and are yet to win at home this season but we’ve just come off the back of a painful defeat and won’t want to lose back to back games, so I think we’ll see a conservative approach this afternoon. That will most likely mean Swansea being allowed to have the ball in non-threatening areas and we will look to keep a disciplined defensive shape and then launch counter attacks wherever possible. This strategy worked against Sheffield United away and I’d hope it could work again today.
Predicted Huddersfield Town XI to take on Swansea
I think we’ll see Town carry on with three at the back today, mostly because we don’t have a good enough rightback. Pipa won’t be back until after Christmas and Turton is taking longer than expected to adjust to the Championship – he could come good in time but looks to be struggling at the moment. Sorba Thomas is sensational at times as a right wingback but he’s isn’t defensively solid enough to be an actual rightback and the further back he plays the less effective he is going forward.
I’m going to guess that we’ll see Colwill, Sinani and Ward all leave the starting eleven today after underwhelming performances last weekend, with Sarr, Holmes and Campbell coming in. Those three changes all represent a change to a less exciting but more dependable option coming in, which will be useful if we do intend to put in a disciplined performance rather than going in all guns blazing.
Goalkeeper: Nicholls
Defence: Pearson, Lees, Sarr
Midfield: Thomas, Hogg, O’Brien, Toffolo
Forwards: Holmes, Campbell, Koroma
Score prediction: 1-1 draw
How to spell dilemma
Those of you who clicked through to this article from NewsNow may have noticed I spelled dilemma incorrectly in the title. I’ve fixed this mistake in the main article but sadly my blunder will remain on NewsNow forever as they don’t let you change a title once it’s on their site. Let’s hope the Terriers’ attention to detail in the Swansea game is better than mine was when I proofread this article.