“We shouldn’t be losing to teams like Mansfield”, pressure on Grant, striker choices and 4-4-2 vs 4-2-3-1 – 4 talking points ahead of Huddersfield Town’s trip to Mansfield

Huddersfield Town return from the international break on Saturday with an away game against Mansfield. This should give us a chance to see if the two wins we saw just before the break were the start of a turning point for the team, or if it was just a blip and we’ll return to the downward spiral we’d seen before that.

It feels like international breaks don’t always suit Town, and we often struggle in the first game back. However, with the team ravaged by injuries prior to the break, these couple of weeks to recover a few players should mean we travel to Mansfield with more options and a stronger lineup. There’s also been a few weeks of time on the training pitch without matches to prepare for, so Lee Grant has had more time to get his ideas over. While there are still fans who doubt Lee Grant’s ideas, the wins over Mansfield in the EFL Trophy and Plymouth in the league have eased the mounting pressure he was under.

Here are a few of my thoughts about this game…

Will Lee Grant stick with 4-4-2 or revert to his preferred system?

There are most likely hundreds of factors that contributed to the two consecutive victories Town had before the international break but switching to having two recognised strikers up front seemed to be one of the largest contributors. The fact that those two strikers were Bojan Radulovic and Dion Charles was a bit of a surprise but it can’t be denied that both seem to have played better in their last two games than in any of their previous outings.

The international break has given a few players the time they needed to recover from injury, so Lee Grant may not be quite so constricted with his selection decisions for this game. Will that mean he’ll revert to the shape he preferred for most of his time in charge or will he stick with the system he turned to in crisis but worked out quite well.

Kevin Nagle talked about Lee Grant’s flexibility when he gave him his vote of confidence during our poor run of form, but from the outside, he has seemed pretty doggedly attached to the wonky 4-2-3-1 system he’s preferred. This game against Mansfield could show us whether Grant is flexible enough to switch to a system that works for our squad but isn’t his preferred one or if he’ll revert back to what he thinks is best, even when the external evidence suggests it doesn’t work.

I suppose it’s worth adding at the end of this section that the tactical shapes are never quite as simple as 4-4-2 vs 4-2-3-1, as Bojan tended to play quite deep at times in the 4-4-2 and Ben Wiles is often pushed up alongside the striker in the 4-2-3-1. With fullbacks often playing more like wingers and wingers tending to be narrow and floating around, there’s a degree of flexibility within all the potential shapes Grant could use. But my personal hope is that he’ll stick with playing two proper strikers in two striking positions.

Is Charles and Radulovic our first choice strike pairing?

I believe Alfie May has one game left on his three-match suspension as well as an injury that kept him out of the Mansfield EFL trophy game. So that means that Taylor, Charles and Radulovic are the likely striking options. Only a few months ago, it would have been unthinkable that Taylor would be forced onto the bench because of Charles and Radulovic’s form but that’s where we are.

As good as the latter two have been lately, Taylor’s spell warming the bench and being restricted to late cameos is more his own fault than down to the form of any other players. He’s clearly a talented footballer, and he’s got the skillset to really do well, but it isn’t coming together for him at the moment. It feels to me a mixture of poor service and poor form on the few occasions he gets the service he needs. A striker with his speed needs accurate through balls to latch on to but we very rarely release him into dangerous areas; instead, he’s chasing balls into the channels or competing for headers he’ll never win.

In time, I hope we develop a system for getting the best out of Taylor and that he works out a way to channel his frustration more productively. But until then, it’s hard to see why he should get the nod ahead of Radulovic and Charles, who both have found ways of playing in the team that seem suited to our style of play.

When May becomes available for selection, there may be a difficult decision to make. Taylor was rumoured to cost £3m and May £1m, which are incredible sums to spend on League One players. Is Grant going to let those price tags affect his decision, or will he keep faith with two players that looked to have the qualities of a busted flush only a few games ago? It’ll be another interesting test of his judgment and bravery.

Will we see a better Mansfield than they put out for the EFL Trophy?

It’s strange to be playing a team again when we only faced them two games ago but the Mansfield team that travelled to the Accu stadium for our final EFL Trophy group game were far from their best team. Town rotated their squad slightly too but injuries meant that we were forced to field a fairly strong team, and that really helped us put in a dominant display against them.

With Mansfield being on their home turf and putting out their strongest team, I can only assume that Town will be in for a tougher test. They’ve got decent home form and we’ve got pretty poor away form, so that points towards a difficult afternoon. Though, while I try my best to avoid saying things like “we shouldn’t be losing to teams like Mansfield” because Town fans have heard that said about us so often when we’ve been in higher leagues. But still. We shouldn’t be losing to teams like Mansfield. There, I’ve said it.

That’s not to disrespect Mansfield but simply to state that Huddersfield Town are a big fish at League One level, and it’s time we started playing like that rather than just talking about it. Are Mansfield going to attack us a bit more because they’re at home? Good, that gives us more gaps to exploit behind them. Do they have good players? Good, that means we can go toe-to-toe with them and our players should come out on top, if they’re nearly as good as we’re frequently told they are. Will their home fans be really vocal? Good, use it against them and play so well that their fans get on their own players’ backs. These are the games we need to win if we’ve any intention of doing well this season.

Has the pressure lifted on Lee Grant?

While you can never know what’s going on behind the scenes, prior to the wins against Mansfield and Plymouth, it felt like Lee Grant was hanging to his job by a thread. There are certainly some former Town managers like Michael Duff and Mark Fotheringham that would argue that Grant’s been given more time than them, in easier circumstances and with fewer positive performances to cause optimism.

I’m pleased that the club have shown a bit of faith in a manager, even if Lee Grant has presided over some pretty disappointing football in his time so far. These last few games have at least hinted at a manager that’s willing to make necessary changes to make a team win. However, I still have my doubts about Grant that two wins haven’t done much to paper over.

To answer the question in the subheading, yes, I think the pressure has lifted on Grant but if we lose this game that pressure will come straight back. Just like it will if we lose any of the dozens of games we’ve got coming up in the next few weeks. So, to talk in metaphorical terms, he’s no longer hanging by a thread but he is walking a tightrope. Or is he on thin ice? Maybe he’s circling the drain. Whatever way you want to phrase it, he’s had a temporary break from the speculation that he’s about to get sacked but those boo boys haven’t had their mind changed, they’re just waiting for another chance to vent their rage.

The thing Lee Grant needs to do in the next few weeks is to build up some credible evidence on the pitch that shows he’s worth sticking with. Not just picking up some scrappy wins but actually looking like the manager he talks about being and developing an exciting and effective way of playing. I’m curious to see whether he manages that.