Why Huddersfield Town should spend some money in this transfer window

This article is the first of a two-parter where I’m going to look at both sides of the argument about whether Town should have a modest transfer window this January or whether they should spend, spend, spend. This one will make the case for why now is the time to get some money spent.

Last transfer window, fans often fell into two distinct camps of those that defended the club’s hierarchy for keeping their hand on their tuppence and those that wanted at least some of the money received in transfer fees and reduced wages to be reinvested into the playing squad.

It’s transpired that the business Town did in the last window was generally very good and we picked up some shrewd signings. Though I do often wonder if we would be even better placed if we’d have brought in two or three more attackers as many fans hoped we would.

There will be another post on the blog shortly making the case for why Town shouldn’t spend too much this window. The easiest way to find out when the next post goes live is to follow the blog’s Twitter account, Facebook page or signup to the email list using the form at the bottom.

Here are my reasons for why Town should invest in some players this transfer window:

Carlos has proved himself and deserves backing

Lots of managers make the kind of noises Carlos did when he arrived at Town. He was going to bring in a new identity and a return to attacking football. Unfortunately, few managers deliver on the promises they make when they first start. Sometimes pragmatism takes over, other times the manager’s own limitations mean they can’t deliver and others don’t have the resources to achieve their vision.

Carlos has, so far at least, been consistent with everything he said he was about when he joined. His plans have been remarkably effective at getting a squad of players that looked certain to be relegation battlers to become comfortably midtable. That’s been achieved despite having a threadbare squad in the most intensive fixture schedule there’s ever been.

Carlos and his team fully deserved their new contracts that were announced on Christmas Eve but the other part of securing an exciting new manager’s loyalty is to give them the resources they need to succeed.

The days of Town spending silly money on players are over for now but I can’t imagine Carlos will want to hang around for long if we don’t invest in new players to some extent. He’s getting a tune out of a squad that is seriously limited so it’s exciting to think what he could be capable of if he had better raw materials to work with.

We’re not far from the playoffs and a modest investment now could really payoff

In terms of risk vs reward, getting to the Premier League is like hitting the financial jackpot, particularly if you can hang around at that level for a while. Town squandered much of their last windfall but if we were to get promoted again we will hopefully be a bit smarter and the huge amount of TV money could be used to establish Town as a top team for years to come.

The Championship is full of basketcase clubs that have tried to throw money at getting promoted and had it blow up in their faces. I wouldn’t advocate gambling our future security of a tilt at promotion this season but spending a bit of money now could, potentially, yield huge rewards down the line.

How many additional points would Town have if they’d managed to get a decent striker in the last window? Or a midfielder that can control the tempo of a game and lay on chances for forwards? Or a ball playing centre back to play alongside Sarr? Three signings could.have been the difference between midtable or playoff contenders. Or not, you never know when buying players but its hard not to wonder “what if?”.

The squad is perilously thin and the youngsters aren’t good enough yet

In Town’s game against Reading we had Edmonds-Green and Schofield starting the game and six more academy players on the bench. So if you remove the youth players we have around eleven or twelve senior first team players currently available for selection. Thankfully Schofield and Edmonds-Green have proven themselves to be ready for first team football (despite the latter’s mistakes against Reading, he’s still looking good enough) but how many of the rest can step up without severely diminishing our chances on the pitch?

The Bournemouth away game was a watershed moment in Calros’ time at Town so far. While changing so many players for that game made defeat likely, the manner of defeat seemed to genuinely shock Corberán and since he’s been very reluctant to play any of his fringe players, even as substitutes.

So it would actually be quite a big gamble to not invest in the squad this window as our thin squad may be even further stretched before the end of the season and our good work in the first half of the season could be undone if we try to muddle through the rest of the season with a squad that doesn’t have the depth for the demands of playing a full Championship season in a condensed period of time during a pandemic.

Fans (and their money) will be back in the stadium soon

I don’t like talking too much about how much money there is or isn’t for transfers because it’s a subject of intense (yet crushingly boring) debate among a subsection of Town fans. But in Phil Hodgkinson’s Radio Leeds interview earlier in the season he said that the club were keeping money in the bank so the club could survive the uncertainty every club was facing.

Its hard to argue against keeping money back at a point when it wasn’t clear when fans could return. Despite the short term situation with the virus looking particularly dire as we enter a third national lockdown, the medium to long term prospects look much better now we have vaccines being rolled out. The exact time fans can return isn’t clear but the prospects look much better and I’m hopeful we’ll be seeing fans back inside at some stage before the end of this season and could be back to full stadia before the end of 2021.

So that rainy day money may not be needed and could be spent on filling some of the gaps we created in the squad with the huge clearout that occurred in the last transfer window.