Huddersfield Town play Cardiff tomorrow night and will feel confident after beating the league leaders on Saturday and extending their unbeaten run to 15 games. However, Cardiff are in relatively decent form and are the exact type of team that Town have struggled against this season.
A physical challenge against an opponent that is happy to play long and sit deep is likely on the cards and Town don’t do particularly well in this kind of game. Or at least they haven’t until recently. This game could represent an opportunity to show how much Town have improved over the course of the season and it will be intriguing to see how the tactical side of the game plays out.
Don’t expect an easy win for Town
It’s easy to look at the league table and think that Cardiff will be pushovers because we’re in the playoffs and they’re hovering above the relegation scrap in 19th place. But Cardiff are a good team and are hard to play against so it won’t be an easy night for Town.
I genuinely think that this game could be harder for Town in some respects than Saturday’s game was. OK, Fulham are an awesome team and it was amazing that Town snatched a win. But Cardiff won’t push forward like Fulham did and it will be far harder for Town to work decent chances from this game against a team that will most likely set up to be hard to beat.
The games where Town have really shone this season have been when they’ve had less of the ball and there have been spaces in behind their opponent to exploit on the break. When the team we’re playing sit back we often find ourselves huffing and puffing but struggling to break the other team down.
What kind of team are Cardiff – in stats
For years I’ve thought that Cardiff have a reputation of being a big awkward team that don’t play pretty football, so I dug up a few stats to see if my prejudice was well founded. It turns out that it was. Here are a few key stats:
- They are second in the Championship for fouls conceded per game (averaging around 12 a game), suggesting they are a bit dirty. Relatively speaking, Town are a team of gentlemen as they are the 23rd foulingest (I appreciate this isn’t a word but I’m using it anyway) team in the league.
- Cardiff are 20th in the league for how much possession they have per game, averaging 44.8%. Proving my hunch that they don’t want to hold the ball too much and are happy to sit in and defend. Town have a tendency this way this season too, we sit in 16th position with our average being 47% possession per game.
- Cardiff are second in the league for aerial challenges won per game (29.7) – suggesting rather than being practitioners of the beautiful game, they are happy to lump it up to the big man when necessary. Now Keiffer Moore has gone to Bournemouth they may be a bit less direct but I’m not holding my breath. Town are 20th in the league for aerials won per game, which I think is more due to the fact we don’t play many long balls rather than us not being good at winning them.
Why do Town struggle against direct teams?
Town really struggle to break down teams that are set up defensively. They like having space for their attackers to run into and defensive teams would rather sit a bit deeper and knock it long to their forwards. So it can lead to those situations where the crowd get restless because Town find it easy to get possession in the opposition half but can’t find any gaps for the attacking players to exploit. This creates those dreary passages where we continue passing it along our back line but can’t get the ball to stick further up field.
Being brutal, this is often a quality issue. It often takes a moment of magic to unlock a defence that is in position and well organised. Town’s passing and touch is often not good enough in these tight situations, we look far better when driving forward into open space where a sloppy touch matters less.
Another issue Town have when playing defensive teams is our tendency to try and draw out the opposition when we play out from the back. It’s a deliberate policy of our team to linger on the ball as much as possible to encourage the other team to press us and, in theory at least, create gaps we can exploit. This has worked well at times for Town but has also led to conceding sloppy goals when we get caught in possession. I liken it to Muhammed Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy, trying to draw an opponent onto us. Sadly it’s too often Town left with a bloody nose when we play this way.
Which players could help Town beat Cardiff?
There are a few ways that Town could try to counteract Cardiff’s strengths in tomorrow night’s game. The most obvious way to deal with their likely reliance on long balls would be to bring Naby Sarr back into the lineup and let him attack all the balls into the box. Sarr is far from perfect but he is good in the air and isn’t easily bullied by a big awkward striker.
Keeping Jon Russell in the team is another way to help win the physical battle. When we have Hogg, O’Brien and Holmes in our starting eleven we lack height but Russell makes up for this and has already shown himself to be useful when attacking and defending set pieces. On top of his height, he’s also physically strong which makes it tougher to get past us in the middle of the park.
Sarr and Russell are options that make Town more able to cope with Cardiff’s strengths but maybe Town should be thinking about how we can play to our own strengths instead. If that’s the case then dropping Russell in favour of Carel Eiting could be a good idea. If we expect to have most of the ball against the Bluebirds then he would be a good option to have on the pitch as he’s able to play a defence splitting pass from deep to set up an attack. He’s a bit lightweight in the midfield battle but he has the quality that can make a difference in a game like this.
Trying to split open a stubborn defence is a puzzle we’ve struggled to solve this season, another option would be to not bother trying to play through Cardiff and instead take pot shots from range and hope to score a spectacular goal. Both Danel Sinani and Josh Koroma have the tendency to try their luck from outside the box and could be useful options if we’re struggling to get in behind Cardiff. Neither are in sparkling form but if they are given explicit instructions to shoot on sight and the other players work hard to create shooting opportunities for them it could be a worthwhile strategy.
Can’t see any changes in the team that played Fulham. First, after that performance, nobody deserves dropping (rotating!) and second Carlos does not change his team unless forced by circumstances. This is probably the first time that I will be pleased if a team just comes just to defend and use long ball tactics. This Town team has a really good defence to handle that and the confidence and ability to break down the opposition. If they don’t have to worry about too many attacks against them it can only be a good thing.
‘foulingest’ should be a word.
Feels like all that good work at Craven Cottage could be undone if we don’t break Cardiff down. Russell is undroppable isn’t he? So maybe adding some more creativity via Pipa (assuming he’s fit) is one of the only changes to the starting 11.
Pipa is not fit.
The Millwall game at home offers a model for tomorrow night. For twenty minutes we seemed clueless and they bossed it. It was only when we started to rely on our organisation and passing game in the middle of the field that we began to turn the tide. At the time it seemed that an important penny had dropped for team and supporters alike.
The crowd need to be patient with our passing across the back and back to keeper tomorrow night. Or Pearson will be having another word with them.
Brilliant. UTT