Huddersfield Town put in their best performance of preseason on Tuesday with a 1-1 draw against the Young Boys of Berne, a Swiss team once managed by David Wagner and a regular competitor in European competition. Town were not intimidated by the step up in competition and dominated the early parts of the game thanks to an energetic press that stopped their opponent getting a foothold in the game. Young Boys finished the stronger of the two sides as Town’s multiple changes meant we lost our rhythm and energy.
The game had some interesting and encouraging moments as well as some causes for mild concern. Yep, “encouraging moments” and “mild concerns” are about as hyperbolic as you can get about a friendly. Here are my thoughts in a bit more detail.
A pressing matter
This was the first time this preseason Town have played a team that are better than them on paper. This step up in quality gave us a chance to see how we cope without the ball for periods of time. I was very encouraged by the energy and commitment from Town when closing down Young Boys (I’m going to switch to calling them YB now to avoid it sounding creepy).
Pressing only works when the whole team is on board and, thankfully, Town went hunting in packs to close down space and stop YB from settling on the ball. I got the feeling our opponents expected a much easier afternoon than we allowed them as they continually gave the ball away as we cut off their options by pushing up high.
YB attempted to pass through Town when we pressed them but the majority of the time their passing wasn’t good enough to find a way through and we won the ball back numerous times this way. Unfortunately, they did manage to get past us a couple of times and because we committed so many men forward, there was potential to get caught on the break. Perhaps having a quick defensive midfielder like Kasumu would help counteract this vulnerability but with Kane and Ledson we did seem to have a lot of space between midfield and defence when we were aggressively trying to win the ball.
We saw David Wagner transform Huddersfield Town with a team that was built around a counter pressing system, so I like this kind of approach. While Lee Grant isn’t David Wagner, I’m encouraged to see how willing he is to take a risk by committing players forward because it also carries a high chance of being rewarded by getting the ball in a good area of the pitch.
Testing the Swiss neutrality
Another positive from this game, from my perspective at least, was that Town were a bit nasty at times. Ledson put in a crunching tackle early on that bordered on unnecessary, Taylor cynically fouled one player then squared up to another in the same sequence, Evans got booked for deliberately leaving his feet in on a player that fouled him. Even Bojan Radulovic showed a meaner side when he picked up a yellow for yanking back a player that got past him.
YB we’re not keen on their rough treatment and the game was pretty feisty for a preseason friendly with nothing to play for. One of their central defenders seemed to take particular exception to our style and could easily have crocked a few of our players, including a nasty flailing arm he aimed into Herbie Kane’s face.
Obviously I would never advocate wanton violence on a football pitch but I do like to see Town players getting stuck into the opposition. Maybe a friendly, when we’re trying to avoid picking up injuries, isn’t the game to do it but I like seeing the desire and commitment anyway.
How many times have we heard Town’s players as a nice group of lads? Too many. I’d rather hear about how they’re a horrible set of oiks and have opposition managers complaining about us every week. There’s a time and a place for being nice but a football pitch isn’t it.
Passing moves straight off the training pitch
I’ve been pretty unimpressed with Town’s attacking side of the game so far this preseason. We’ve been playing teams that have mostly sat back and defended in fairness but there has been a lack of creativity and invention at times. This game was a bit different though and we seemed to be trying some new things when we had the ball.
I’ve been watching the club’s training videos from their time in Austria and one of the most interesting drills they do involves a sequence of passing and moving around inflatable men. It involves short passing, quick movement and lots of interplay between players. In this friendly between YB, we repeated these passing patterns on multiple occasions and these moments where we completed multiple short passes with lots of movement off the ball were our best attacking bits of the game.
There are two things to like here, firstly that the players are implementing their training into match situations and also that Lee Grant is teaching the squad methods that seem to be effective at opening teams up. It’s early days, so the real test will come when there’s pressure on games, but at this stage it’s all pretty encouraging.
If I was going to grumble, these spells of nice passing were mostly in the middle of the park and our attacking play in the final third is still lacking creative spark. This was evident from the first half seeing Town on top but going in one behind; we didn’t convert promising opportunities into clear goal scoring opportunities often enough.
Some thoughts on individual players
Most of the first team players and a few of the academy kids were involved in this game, with Joe Low and Lyden Gooch the only first teams to not feature. I’d presume both are close to fitness as they were at the game and looked fine. It’s a bit strange how Joe Low seems fully involved in the training videos that come out but hasn’t yet played a minute of preseason. It now seems fairly unlikely he’ll be at full match sharpness for the start of the season. Gooch is a bit of a mystery. I doubt he was held back because he’s not trainied enough, as we played kids to make up the numbers at times. Maybe he has a knock but with him passing his medical days ago, it’s strange he didn’t play at least a few minutes.
Ben Wiles continues to look good and was unlucky not to score. On paper, he’d be classed as a number ten who plays behind the striker but for a lot of the game he was playing high up the field enough to be classed as a striker. This attacking role seems to suit him more than playing deeper and he looks sharp.
Joe Taylor scored a good goal, beating the keeper to Anthony Evans’ excellent punt downfield and poking the ball into an empty net. I’m optimistic that we’re going to see a much better version of Taylor this season, as he seems sharper and has had preseason to get integrated into the team. The ball over the top from Evans also suggests we’re starting to understand the kind of service Taylor needs (balls to run on to rather than ones he has to win in the air).
Whatmough and Feeney looked a decent enough centre back pairing. Despite them both adding to the growing list of Town players with bad hairstyles , they dealt well with everything YB threw at them. Feeney looks even younger than his 20 years but is surprisingly solid when put under pressure.
Murray Wallace had a good game, doing such a good job against YB’s danger man that he switched wings to have a go at the more vulnerable Sorensen in the other fullback berth. Even so, I’m not sure Wallace is mobile enough to play as a traditional left back, he’s painfully slow and has to rely on positioning and experience to avoid being caught out. He also turned down several crossing opportunities when he was going forward which Miller or Roosken would have been far more likely to put into the box.
Herbie Kane and Ryan Ledson started as the midfield pairing and on this evidence I think that could be a good partnership. Kane’s passing range was good and helped spread the play around. Ledson did a lot of the donkey work at the base of midfield but still managed to push forward at times.
Radinion Balker played 20 minutes, which is a good start and suggests he’ll be available for selection at some point soon. Providing he doesn’t pick up another injury in the meantime.
Bojan Radulovic played as a number ten and showed some good touches and at other times looked like a headless chicken. Freddie Ladapo and Dion Charles both had the sort of games you would expect from them, lots of effort but not a lot of end product.
Marcus Harness had another decent outing without being spectacular. He seems very comfortable at receiving the ball in tight spaces and his movement is clever. He drifts inside a lot, so needs an overlapping wingback to cover the wide attacking areas but that drifting around seems to be his biggest threat and pulls defenders around with him.
I watched the match – the joys of retirement – and agree with most of your assessment, particularly the lack of creativity in the final third.
My disagreement with you relates to the press. What I saw was Taylor wasting a lot of energy chasing around from left to right in a fruitless effort to get the ball. If he’d actually won the ball just once, maybe, just maybe, I’d have thought it worthwhile; but he didn’t. He commits far too early so it’s the easiest job for a centre back to lay the ball off. Attackers think they earn brownie points for effort; not in my book if it’s fruitless and they’ve run out of puff after 60 minutes.
The only other word I’d add is Nicholls. I don’t think you mentioned him. He had an excellent second half and made 2 or 3 really good saves. On the evidence of that one match, he looked much more like our number 1 keeper than Goodman had in the first half. My fear is that Nicholls may be confined to the bench because Goodman is a loan player from a Premier League team to whom we’ve committed to give game time. I note that Goodman has been given the number 1 shirt which suggests that this will be the natural order of things unless Nicholls is to be sold.
It’s an interesting point about pressing and Taylor’s role. Danny Ward was always good at chasing down lost causes but was rarely in the danger area when we attacked. Taylor seems like a different type of player but I suspect his instructions will be to chase down the ball and try to force an error. Young Boys probably had better quality defenders than we’re likely to see in League One, so weren’t too bothered by him. I’d expect he’ll get more return for his efforts against a poorer standard.
You’re right to mention Nicholls contribute, I should have included him as he was our best player in the second half. He looks pretty glum in training but even if he’s leaving, he’s still a very good keeper. Goodman will no doubt be a good keeper for us given how well he did at Wimbledon last season. But in this outing he was a bit wasteful with his passing.
I thought Nicholls out shone Goodman ,
Although Palace haven’t sent him out on loan , to be number 2. Suspect Nicholls
May be sold, along with Healey & Freddie .
We still require another Midfielder, winger
And striker . Taylor needs someone to feed off. Good solid performance against YB.
Town players looked fitter and stronger, plus nasty, which I’m all for. Still not sold on Charles . If we could receive a good offer, replace him asap .
U T T – ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️
In the Q&A Lee Grant did with fans in Austria he said that there are no minimum appearances or similar clauses in Goodman’s loan deal (I’m not in Austria but Steven Chicken uploaded the audio in his last podcast). So in theory Nicholls could still be number one. In practice though, Goodman will surely be first choice unless he ships seven goals in his first game. When we had Joel Pereira on loan, known to fans as poppadom hands, he barely played. What’s strange is that he was awful for us but is much loved at Reading from bits I’ve seen from their fans.
I agree about the need for wingers and attacking midfielders. I’m dubious that we’ll find anyone as daft as us to take on Healey or Ladapo but I suppose anything is possible.
Lots to say but I’ll stick to two points. I liked Taylor ratting around. YB are very comfortable playing out from the back but with Taylor chasing and then Harkness & Wiles pushing up made it hard for them. Taylor also came close closing their keeper down and made his distribution pretty poor. If he is shot after an hour then fine, substitute him. Many League 1 sides will struggle to play like that against us.
On Wallace I think that was execllent tactics. His job was to stop their dangerous right winger, which he did. Other games a more mobile defender will be preferred but I think his experience was invaluable in that game.
Lastly, OK, three points, I really like Feeney. Reads the game very well for his age and looks totally committed.