German lessons for the Terriers
IT’S great to be back, and it will be brilliant to have Huddersfield Town in action on Saturday.
Even though we can’t be there, it will be exciting to see Danny Cowley and his team again.
Football without the fans, though, doesn’t seem real. I have been watching closely what’s been happening in the Bundesliga, and there are certainly a few notes of warning.
There has been a significant change. And the lack of crowds seem to have brought on three specific events.
Firstly, the home crowd affecting the players and, just as importantly, the officials. The referees, interestingly, have given slightly more yellow cards to the home teams in the Bundesliga over the last five rounds of games, where before the away team would be expected to pick up more yellow cards.
While this is a small sample, it is fascinating that the balance of those tough, 50-50 calls that home teams get, they have disappeared.
Of course, on the flip side, when Town go to Forest, Birmingham, Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall, those 50-50 calls which used to go to the home side should come their way. Let’s wait and see.
There are 18 teams in the Bundesliga, and in the 45 games played before last weekend there has been only nine home wins.
As a bookmaker and a punter, and as a football fan, that makes me think wow!
The levelling up seems to have come from teams of similar abilities, as Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund - the German Liverpool and City - are still completely dominating the games they play, particularly at home.
There seems to be a patience about the better teams. They know their quality, they know if they maintain their strategy, their tactics and their energy, they are simply better than the opposition.
It will be fascinating to see if we get a similar pattern in the Premier League and the Championship.
The return of football has everybody looking at the structure and how the pyramid of the British game works, but that is probably a discussion for another day.
I seriously worry about the future of League One and League Two clubs, where home gate revenue is pretty much the only money they have.
About four weeks ago, I was asked by the guys at Sporting Life, who I write for regularly now, to look at the Championship and to come up with any bets I though would be interesting for the return.
This will make you laugh, but I picked out Charlton to stay up.
If you remember, they were so impressive early in the season with Lyle Taylor scoring goals left, right and centre and, to be fair to Lee Bowyer, they’ve been the side affected most by injuries during this season.
So my argument was, with a fresh start and a fully-fit squad Charlton must have a great chance of staying up. Who would have guessed that a couple of weeks later, Lyle Taylor would announce he won’t be playing for Charlton again because he might get injured before his contract runs out in the summer.
These sort of underlying problems are a nightmare for managers and fans, but also for players, who have to balance up their futures and what’s best for their careers and their families.
It is never one-sided, but I think the Charlton situation makes us all understand how complex football has become as we emerge from the lockdown situation.