preseason – Page 2 – Terrier Spirit – Huddersfield Town FC blog

Jun292024 by Terrier Spirit7 Comments

Alfie May… or may not sign, training returns, Sorba’s narrative, home kit, first friendly & Kev’s gesture – A Hudersfield Town roundup

News

The bit after the season ends and before the next season starts is always a slow period for Town related stuff. But now we're entering into preseason the trickle of Town news is now starting to accelerate. So to celebrate, I thought I'd do an article to summarise my thoughts on the recent Town-related goings on. There isn't really a theme to all this stuff, it's just everything that I've nearly, but not quite written a dedicated article about in the last week or two. Now we're into preseason and the transfer market is hotting up so there should be more to write about in the coming weeks. But for now, here's my roundup of all the recent Huddersfield Town news. Alfie May… or may not sign for Town I had a whole section written about Alfie May's potential transfer being up in t...

Aug12023 by Terrier Spirit7 Comments

Midfield worries, red card call lacked common sense, Edwards’ long throw, Hudlin’s claim – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 1-0 win over Heerenveen

Matches

Huddersfield Town finished their preseason schedule with a 1-0 victory of Heerenveen on Saturday afternoon. They faced a stern test in the first half until a red card just before half time saw the visitors from the Netherlands reduced to ten men and Town dominated the second half. It wasn’t as full-blooded as some of Town’s other preseason games, perhaps both teams wanted to preserve themselves for the upcoming season, but it was still relatively entertaining. However, I’m not sure the game served up warranted the time and expense invested by the 300ish Heerenveen fans who enjoyed a weekend in West Yorkshire. They were in fine voice and seemed to enjoy themselve but they must be a bit barmy to have made the trip to England for a meaningless friendly - hats off to them. First h...

Jul232023 by Terrier Spirit8 Comments

Glorious goals, captain Sorba, same old problems, Rhodes spite, special teams subs – Notes on the Stockport friendly

Matches

Huddersfield Town traveled to Stockport yesterday for a friendly and came away with a 4-0 victory. While it’s important not to get too carried away with preseason games, particularly when they’re against a team from further down the divisions, there were some positive signs on display alongside the important fitness test for the Terriers. The game was played at a fairly good tempo for a friendly game, I don’t think Neil Warnock would allow any team of his to drop their standards for even a meaningless game like this. While it wasn’t anything like a proper league game, there were some full-blooded tackles and there weren't those horrible lulls you sometimes get in friendlies, where the players almost stand on the ball to get their breath back. Both teams went for it and had a go. And w...

Jul12023 by Terrier Spirit2 Comments

Huddersfield Town are one of only four Championship teams to have not yet returned for preseason training

Opinion

It’s got to that really boring part of the time in between seasons, where last season seems like a distant memory but the new season seems far away too. One of the signs that it’s not too long until the new season returns is when the players come back for preseason training. I’ve noticed on social media that many other clubs seem to be back in training but so far Huddersfield Town’s squad are still on their holidays. I then thought that someone should find out which Championship teams have returned and which ones haven’t. And, because once an idea like that occurs to me, I find it hard to let go, I decided that person should be me. So I’ve gone through all of the 24 Championship teams' social media feeds and found out which ones are back in training and when they returned. Here’s what ...

Jul252022 by Terrier Spirit1 Comment

Are Huddersfield Town unprepared for the start of the new season?

Opinion

Huddersfield Town concluded their preseason campaign at the weekend with a 4-1 victory at Tranmere Rovers with their second team and a 1-1 draw against Bolton with their, in theory, strongest team - though Bolton’s late equaliser came in the dying moments of the game when nearly half half the senior players had been subbed and replaced by the kids on the bench. Preseasons are notoriously difficult to use as indicators for the prospects for the season ahead but it’s literally all we have to go on until Town play Burnley on Friday of this week, so I thought I’d chew over some of my thoughts about the preseason campaign in general. Too short, not ambitious but probably fine Because Huddersfield Town’s 2021/22 ran for around a month longer than everyone else’s due to our playof...

Jul282021 by Terrier Spirit14 Comments

Preseason optimism fizzles out at the seaside – Notes on the Fleetwood friendly

Matches

After feeling pretty chipper about Town's prospects after the friendly against Norwich, last night's defeat to Fleetwood caused me to recalibrate my expectations of what to expect from Town. While friendlies don't mean a great deal, the familiarity of Town's failings last night suggests that we're likely to see many of last season's problems repeated in the forthcoming campaign. Here are my thoughts on the game… Naby Sarr isn't as good as Colwill I don't like to single out individual players for criticism but Naby Sarr had a stinker in the first half last night. He got caught in possession all the time, slowed the game down by almost standing on the ball at times (though the options ahead of him weren't always great) and his passing was wayward even by h...

Jul252021 by Terrier Spirit10 Comments

Beauty and the beast, Sorba steps up, grafting midfielders and the usual gripes – Notes on the Norwich friendly

Matches

My cat likes to catch mice and bring them into the house when they're half dead. He'll then play around with them for a while, having great fun while the poor defenseless creature suffers. That's the closest metaphor I can think of to compare our last meeting with Norwich. So it's not a huge surprise to see that most Town fans came away from this game happy to have only lost by two. Norwich were clearly the classier outfit but Town played with a good tempo and unsettled Norwich with our energy and high press. There was good stuff and not so good stuff on display from Town in this game, I'll try to talk about both below. We played some nice football but didn't create enough and made individual errors at the back The above summary of this game could probably apply to around two t...

Jul212021 by Terrier Spirit12 Comments

Huddersfield Town’s latest signing could hint towards future transfer plans

Transfers

Huddersfield Town signed Jon Russell for their B Team following his release from Chelsea earlier this summer. Despite being on loan at Accrington Stanley last season and playing first team football in League One he will initially start off in Jon Worthington's B Team rather than going straight into the first team. This acquisition might hint at the long-term plan to use the B Team to bed in players rather than spending money on established players that are ready for the first team. A bit like buying green bananas and ripening them yourself rather than buying ones that are ready to eat. Since Town revamped their youth system and got rid of their younger academy age groups they have relied on recruiting players from other club's academies but it's unusual for them to bring in playe...

Jul192021 by Terrier Spirit10 Comments

Thoughts on the new boys, familiar concerns, players MIA and encouraging signs – Notes on the Southport friendly

Matches, News

After a few months of post-season rest I thought it might be useful to write an article about yesterday's friendly against Southport. At this stage in the season it's more about getting a few hundred words in the tank and getting back up to full blogging fitness. So don't expect anything too insightful or interesting from this article, I'm just trying to work my way back up to the, admittedly low, standards that I usually reach. And my lack of match fitness was abundantly clear when the first half literally sent me to sleep and I missed all of half time and the start of the second half. So apologies if the first ten minutes of that half completely contradicted the rest of the 90, I suspect it was more of the same but it could have featured Lewis O'Brien riding a pink elephant and Carl...

Sep32020 by Terrier Spirit12 Comments

Which transfer deals could soon go through at Huddersfield Town?

Matches, Transfers

The transfer market has been moving at a similar pace to Alan Lee in his slippers this last few weeks. Despite Huddersfield Town desperately needing players, only two incoming deals have got over the line in this transfer window, with Danny Ward arriving on a free and Joel Pereira coming on loan from Manchester United. Rumours have been circulating for weeks about players being on the verge of signing for Town but then nothing would materialise. I though it might be useful to recap the deals that have been reported but not completed. There have been dozens of players names connected to Town but some have been more consistently mentioned. I've written below about the four most likely to happen. While I can't see Town signing all these players before Saturday's game against Rochdale, I'd h...