We’re doomed! 6 reasons to feel pessimistic about Huddersfield chances this season

After getting your hope up with my optimistic preview yesterday, it’s time to bring you back down to Earth with a thunk with my pessimistic look ahead to Huddersfield Town’s 22/23 Championship season. 

If you’re anything like the typical Town fan you’ll feel much more at home among the misery and cynicism anyway. Those rare moments of success feel bewildering and almost threatening, much better the familiar and almost comforting gloom that tends to gather over Town Dan’s faces when the subject of our club’s fates come up. You don’t have to be miserable to be a Town fan but it helps! 

I’m exaggerating but it does sometimes feel like it’s better to expect the worst with Huddersfield Town so then at least it’s not a surprise I’d things end badly. While we have had our moments in the sun over the last ten years, they’ve been fleeting and quickly followed by further years of struggle. So, here are some of my gloomiest concerns for the season ahead. Apologies if I ruin your positive vibes! 

We’ve had a poor preseason

I went into more detail.in my article earlier this week but our playoff campaign means the players didn’t get a long enough break and also haven’t had a long enough preseason either. So it’s likely other clubs in our league are going to be fitter and better prepared than we are. Add to that the turmoil that our head coach walking out did to the preparations and it doesn’t bode well. 

I watched bits of the preseason games and I’m not going to draw too many conclusions from games that are merely fitness exercises but last weekend’s games against Bolton and Tranmere didn’t look like the final friendly game of preseason. If anything it looked like the first game where players are still working on basic shape and fitness. 

Add to that the fact our new players have barely playes and therefore have not had chance to integrate or learn the routines in a match situation and it feels like we’re going into this season completely on the back foot and it could be September before we’re properly up and running, by which time a lot of matches will have taken place. 

We’ve sold our best players and our biggest characters

I tried to play down the importance of O’Brien and Toffolo in yesterday’s article by saying that our achievements last season were built on the collective team rather than any individuals. But the team spirit was built up by the great set of characters we had in the camp and two of the most influential characters within the squad were the two we sold to Nottingham Forest last week. So while their contributions on the pitch are unquestionably going to be hard to replace, there’s also going to be a big hole to fill off the pitch too and we’ve lost a couple of the characters that really helped the buzz about the team.

On the footballing side of things, Toffolo might have had his weaknesses at times but he was superb in the run in to last season. Whether he’ll be able to translate that to the Premier League is open to debate but he’s left big shoes to fill and it’s going to be difficult for the players left behind to fill his shoes. 

It’s going to be even harder for anyone to replace O’Brien, so much so that it’s most likely going to be a couple of players that we look to as his replacements. Kasumu has been brought in as the defensive workhorse and Rudoni as the one who can burst into the box and link midfield and attack. Neither of those players have played in the Championship before though and it’s unlikely they’re going to be able to hit the heights that O’Brien regularly did, particularly not straight away.

Our head coach walked out because he knew he couldn’t get a tune out of this squad 

Carlos Corberán’s exit was weird and while the story coming out of the Huddersfield Town side of things points towards him being a prima donna who expected the moon on a stick, I wonder what he would say if he could speak honestly? Probably that he was being given an impossible job, being expected to mount another promotion push with a team that is more likely to be fighting off relegation. 

After being within a hair’s breadth from the Premier League, Carlos decided he would rather sit this season at Huddersfield out and protect his legacy, such as it is, and wait for another job to come along. That’s how little faith he had in his ability to get a tune out of this squad this season. 

I must say though, if he puts himself forward for any job that comes up in the next few months, he’ll have to explain why he walked away from what looked like a good job. I can’t see how he can explain his decision without making himself seem flighty and temperamental. Unless there’s more to the story that we don’t know.

Any players that do well between now and Christmas could be sold in January 

The recent update on Town’s website and Radio Leeds interview from Dean Hoyle made it clear that we have to sell our best players to be sustainable. Which is a harsh reality of Town’s current situation which we have to accept I suppose but it’s a bit depressing too. Like a primitive village having to make ritual sacrifices to their gods to bring the rains, we have to sacrifice our best players every summer transfer window to satisfy the accountants. 

So if any of Town’s players start to do really well this season I’m going to have Dean Hoyle’s words ringing in my ears about the accounts and how we’ve got to sell players to try and turn our £10m annual loss into something closer to a £5m or even £3m deficit. On second thoughts, I think I’ll just forget about the finances and enjoy the football and let Dean Hoyle work out how he’ll balance the books. 

Danny Schofield is completely untested 

Yesterday I pointed out how Schofield must be highly thought of to be given such a big job for his first head coaching role. The other side of the coin is that he’s been given such a high profile job without any relevant experience and it’s a massive risk. I really like Danny Schofield and he comes across as a lovely guy but I’m not yet seeing the killer instinct that I think good head coaches and managers need. 

I thought that Carlos was a bit too much of a loon on the sidelines but I worry that Danny Schofield could be a bit too laid back and that could translate onto the pitch. It’s far too early to make this judgement though, so we’ll have to wait until at least the end of the game on Friday to see what kind of coach he’s going to be. Regardless, he’s inexperienced and it’s a very big job to take on for your first step into management.

Few of our new signings have may Championship experience 

Town have made some interesting signings this season and they all have potential but none of them are established Championship performers so they are all gambles. The only one of them with any significant experience at this level is Connor Mahoney, who has been a relative flop at his previous Championship clubs and is dining at the last chance saloon at this level.

The others all have potential to be able to kick on but they will have to overcome the initial culture shock of the Championship which can take a little bit of time. Recent examples of this phenomena are Ollie Turton and Carel Eiting. Both became decent players in the end but in their early games they looked like rabbits in the headlights because the pace of the games was too much for them and they couldn’t cope. So even if these new players are any good, it could be months before we see the best of them.