After all the hoohaa about away ticket priority, it’s nice to get back to talking about football. The football in question is a friendly between Huddersfield Town and Bury at Gigg Lane.
Here’s a match preview with all the practical details, stats, opposition info, and idle speculation that you’re likely to need.
Match details
Kick-off: Sunday 16 July 2017, 3pm
Ticket prices: Adults: £10 / Over-65s and under-23s: £5 / Accompanied under-12s: free of charge / Ambulant disabled & wheelchair-bound supporters: £5 with a free carer
Town fans can pay on the day for the same prices as above.
Travel info: The Football Ground Website has some useful information about how to get to Gigg Lane. It sounds like parking is tricky, as there’s virtually no official club parking, so you’re left to find on-street parking that isn’t residents only.
Likely lineup
I’m not going to bother picking an estimated team for this game because it’s likely to be another game where there are two completely different elevens in each half. This is a good way to get game time for most of the squad and forces Wagner to experiment with players in different positions.
I predict that Nahki Wells will continue playing as a number 10, so Mounié and Depoitre each get a half as the lead striker. I also think Harry Bunn will play in central midfield as a poor-man’s Aaron Mooy, while the real thing enjoys his post-Confederations Cup break.
Tommy Smith (foot), Michael Hefele (Achilles), Jon Stankovic (knee) and Aaron Mooy (well deserved holiday) are unavailable for the game. All but Stankovic should be back in training in the next week or so.
Things to watch out for in the Bury friendly
Will Scannell continue as a right-back?
I don’t know if he’s just a stopgap while Tommy Smith is injured or if this is a permanent change in position to improve his chances of getting in the team.
How will Town fans react to Lee Clark?
Lee Clark’s time at Huddersfield Town seems to divide many fans. Was he a great, passionate manager that led Town on a record-breaking 43-game unbeaten run? Or was he a manager that failed to achieve promotion despite having one of the biggest budgets in League One? The truth is that he was both of these things but whether he was a passionate coach or a borderline lunatic depends on your perspective.
I’m curious to see if Town fans will give Bury’s manager a warm or hostile reception. Personally, I enjoyed the Lee Clark era at Town but I think it was right for Dean to make the change when he did.
Will Town play three at the back?
Someone on Facebook mentioned that Danny Williams played more like a third centre back than a deep-lying midfielder at Accrington Stanley. The difference between the two roles is possibly minimal but I wonder if Wagner is experimenting with variations on the usual 4-2-3-1 formation.
Will the tempo be higher than Accrington Stanley?
Martin Cranie said in his pre-match interview with the club that the team have been instructed by David Wagner to apply their “reactive pressure” in these friendly games. This means playing the pressing game we used so well last season. It’s hard to imagine the team will go for it like they would in a league match, but will this instruction mean the game is played a bit less like a boring friendly?
Opposition info
Bury have been bouncing between the third and fourth tier of English football since the 1920s, apart from a couple of seasons in the second tier in the late nineties. Last season saw them survive in League One with a single point more than Port Vale in the final relegation spot.
Playing Bury will conjure up a lot of memories for Town fans. As mentioned above, Town’s old manager, Lee Clark is their manager. There are also quite a few ex-Town players in their ranks too. Joe Murphy, Joe Skarz, Neil Danns and Jermaine Beckford are all Bury players now. We’d have also had a chance to see James Vaughan again were it not for his £900k move to Sunderland this week.
If you were to travel in time from 2012 and look at the two squad lists then I think you’d probably think Bury’s team was more likely to be Town’s instead of our current team.
Man to watch: Jermaine Beckford
Now 33-years-old, it’ll be interesting to see how effective Jermaine Beckford is. He’s not likely to have the same pace he had in his earlier days at Leeds but he can be a clinical finisher and he’ll provide a challenge for Town’s central defence.
Bury v Town history
Huddersfield Town and Bury first met back in 1912 in the old Division Two, with Town winning 4-0. We’ve since met 62 times, with Town winning 32, Bury winning 15 and the other 15 being draws.
The most recent competitive match was back in the 2011/2012 season, where Town drew the home leg 1-1 and the away leg 3-3. The home tie against Bury came during Lee Clark’s record breaking 43-match unbeaten run but by the time the away fixture game around he’d been sacked and Simon Grayson had taken over as manager.
Terrier Spirit opinion
It’s a friendly, and one that’s early in the season, against lower league opposition, so it’s really not important to get a result from this game. While the players should want to turn in a performance every time they wear the shirt, it’s more important to get a good work out and avoid any injuries.
I’m going to predict a 3-1 victory. With the new attacking players we have starting to understand our system and the existing forwards needed to keep in contention, I think we’ll score plenty in this game. I’m predicting we’ll concede one because we’ll not be playing anything close to our best back four at times, so slips at the back are quite likely.