Huddersfield Town take on Stockport County at the Accu Stadium on Saturday afternoon. It’s the first home game since the club announced taking full ownership of the stadium, so it’s being billed as a housewarming party. Hopefully Stockport won’t do anything to spoil the party atmosphere and we can prove ourselves against one of League One’s more fancied teams (and last season’s defeated playoff finalists).
Before I get into the talking points, I should also apologise for my lack of posts in the last few weeks. I’ve been under the weather but am feeling better now, so normal service should be resumed. I’ll be doing the usual predicted lineup, player ratings and post-game notes for this match as well as some slightly different bits during the international break.
Here are the prematch talking points.
Do Town have a finishing problem?
In the last two games Huddersfield Town have taken 48 shots (23 against Exeter and 25 against Harrogate) and scored a single goal from all those efforts. While it’s common sense that not every shot will lead to a goal, the ratio of shots taken to goals going in the net is crazily low. The main issue over these last two games seems to be getting the ball to hit the target, with only one of Town’s 23 Exeter shots and six of the 25 Harrogate shots hitting the target.
So over the last two games, Town have found around 15% of their shots hitting the target. Thankfully, this hasn’t been the case over the whole season, as in League One games we’ve averaged 12.9 shots a game and 4.4 shots on target a game, making it 33% or around one in three of our shots being on target. This is broadly in line with most other teams in the league and would have been even better before this recent blip.
Having watched Town struggle to hit the target in these last two games, it’s hard to diagnose exactly what the problem is. I don’t think Town are shooting too frequently or taking wild pot shots from ridiculous angles, it has just felt like the execution hasn’t been good enough. So rather than any complicated tactical shift, we just need to be better in front of goal.
I have some sympathy for Lee Grant, as he can pick the team and instruct them on how to play but it’s ultimately up to the players to put the ball in the net. With players like Joe Taylor and Alfie May available, we should be finishing or at least finding the target with more of our chances. This Stockport game will be a chance to put this recent blip right.
Has Oli Norwood still got it?
It’s eleven years since Oliver Norwood played for Huddersfield Town and since leaving he’s enjoyed a successful career, mostly playing either at the same level or higher than Huddersfield Town. He’s currently plying his trade at Stockport and will most likely feature heavily in this game as he’s a key player for them.
After playing in the Premier League and the top end of the Championship for much of his career, Norwood has taken a step down to play in League One. It will be interesting to see how he manages now he’s 34. While he most likely has slowed down a bit, footballers don’t tend to lose their touch as they age, so I think he could be a dangerous player in this game.
Regardless of the threat he will cause us, I hope he receives a good reception from Town fans as he was a good servant to the club and his partnership with Adam Clayton is one of my favourte midfield pairings we’ve seen at Town in recent years (Hogg and Mooy obviously being the first choice). Feel free to add your favourite Huddersfield Town midfield partnerships in the comments.
Could this game set the agenda for the month ahead?
After August featured eight Town games and September had seven games, October is set to only feature three games. The postponement of the Luton game that was due to fall next weekend and the lack of midweeks cup games means we’re going to have longer waits between our Town fix in the weeks ahead. While the players may enjoy the extra rest between games, for fnas it means there’s longer to stew between games and that adds a little bit more importance to getting a result from this game.
Stockport are a good team and will no doubt be a big test for Town but with Bolton and Wycombe being our other opponents in October, it’s going to be a testing month all together. League One does have some teams that are objectively poor (Exeter last weekend being a good example) but these three upcoming games are all going to be tricky and Town need to start this month on the right footing.
While Town currently sit fifth in the table and aren’t too far from the automatic promotion spots, this season feels like it could go either way at the moment. This game against Stockport could help to set the course for the month ahead and also the whole season. Not just in terms of picking up points but also in terms of how we play. Will we see Lee Grant’s coaching methods start to bear fruit and a more fluent style of play emerge or will we struggle to get the ball out of our own half and make silly mistakes? Based on the evidence of this season so far, either is plausible.
My hope is that we’ll start to see things coming together and some time soon we will see a completely convincing 90 minute performance from Town where they dominate the game and score plenty of goals. Despite some promising signs, we’ve not done that yet but we need to if we’re serious about competing for promotion.
Will the new big screen be a big improvement?
While the new big screen isn’t likely to have a significant bearing on the game itself, it will hopefully be something that makes the match experience better for fans. Pictures of the screen have leaked online and it’s an interesting design. Rather than the usual TV-like aspect ratio most clubs use, Town have opted for a shorter and wider shape that fills the space at the back of the Cowshed stand.
The screen itself looks to be a major upgrade on the one it replaces but the success of it will depend on how well it is used. Hopefully we’ll now be able to watch instant replays in the stadium of key moments and be given useful information over the board.
I hope the next improvement to the matchday experience is the stadium’s PA system, which seems to be a near-impossible problem to fix. I’m not sure why but years and years of tinkering and adjusting hasn’t even achieved a sound system that isn’t either deafening or inaudible. There’s something weird about the acoustics of the stadium that leads to the sound constantly being not quite right but fixing this problem will really help the club to make the most of the possibilities the new big screen presents.
I don’t have the actual statistics but the impression that I get of not scoring is that too many attempts skim the far post. It seems the players are always trying to find a corner of the net and more often than not miss completely. I would rather they blasted at the middle and because they are not perfect, they would score to the side of the goalkeeper. Everyone watches multimillion pound players slotting goals in easily (and sometimes missing!) but this is League 1 and the idea is right but the skill just isn’t there consistently. The same applies to passing out from the back. The skill to do this for 90 minutes just isn’t there at this level.
I totally agree with you with regard to Clayton and Norwood, less so about the Hogg part of Hogg and Mooy.
Although not a theme of your article I feel compelled to mention the last game. I was baffled by the make-up of the squad for the Hartlepool game; three strikers were named in the team with a further one on the bench, that is strikers in name only not in deed, yet the inexperienced midfield did not have any potential help or viable replacement substitutes. What is the thinking there?
The match started badly for Town compounded by yet another disaster when playing out from the back. My eyes tell me there is little evidence of this style of play working after a dozen or so games. I immediately recalled an article recently written about Martin O’Neill: a European cup winner; Forest and Republic of Ireland manager, where the author stated that he is sceptical of the reliance on data and modern tactical trends, which he suggests make some teams more willing to take risks in their own penalty area than the opponents’ box. I had to smile!
Town have already beaten last season’s defeated playoff finalists. They (Leyton Orient) knocked out Stockport on penalties in the semifinal. Most likely Stockport will be trickier opponents than Orient.
I was actually a bit sad that Town’s “resign former players” strategy didn’t apply to Norwood. He definitely still has it.
Sorry you haven’t been well – hope all OK now. I had no idea they were playing Harrogate – but sort wish I hadn’t known!
It seems to be asking a lot to beat Stockport after the Harrogate debacle.
Will his coaching ‘start to bear fruit’? Apparently no sign so far – but ‘its being so cheerful that keeps me going’.
How did you not know Town were playing Harrogate? These games are not secret. And how do you conclude it was a debacle against Harrogate when you clearly didn’t see the game – I guess you believe whatever you are told and have not drawn your own conclusions.