Town need Campbell to bring club net gain

TOWN do not have to look back too far for the last time they found themselves suddenly unable to rely on their freescoring left winger for goals. Exactly 12 months would do it.

Karlan Grant was not injured, as Josh Koroma is now, but it’s fair to say that opposition sides were starting to figure him out.

Having not gone more than two games without finding the net up until the draw away to Wigan on December 14, Grant would embark on the driest spell of his Town career over the Christmas

period and beyond: one goal in ten games. That brilliant strike at the DW Stadium was his only goal in the whole of December and he would not score again until the trip to Hull on January 28.

Thankfully, Town had another ace in the hole who roared into form at just exactly the right time – Steve Mounie.

The cult figure had not scored since February going into the game against Nottingham Forest on December 21 but would notch up nine goals in 14 appearances between then and the 4-0 win over Charlton Athletic on 29th February – goals that ultimately proved

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between 20/12/2020 and 10/ 01/2021 inclusive. 18+ UK Only. Full T&Cs apply. vital in Town’s survival from relegation.

That ability to fall back on plan B has often been lacking for the Terriers this season.

Last year nine of their 51 goals (18 per cent) were scored by substitutes; this season it’s two out of 22 (9pc).

Ahead of Saturday’s win, they have not scored a single goal in the 235 minutes they have played without at least two of Koroma, Isaac Mbenza, or Fraizer Campbell on the pitch – a small sample size, for sure, but then they’ve scored 13 in the 623 minutes with all three on the pitch and nine goals in the 852 minutes with at least two of them playing together.

Half the teams in this division would find life more difficult if you removed their top scorer and pretty much all of them would struggle without two of their first-choice front line.

But that only makes it even more essential that Town find another way to make it work. The expected arrival of Danny Grant from Bohemians is a boost even if it understandably takes the 20-year-old a bit of time to get up to Championship level, while we believe Town retain their interest in Newcastle United winger Rolando Aarons.

But neither man would be available to play until January. In such a tight division that’s a lot of potential points to leave on the table for want of an alternative source of goals.

Part of the principle behind hiring Carlos Corberan was to implement a style of play that would share the goals around the team, and the initial prospects looked good on that front: taking the own goal against Rotherham out of the equation, Town had eight different scorers among their first 11 goals this season.

But since then only Naby Sarr has added his name to the list of goalscorers, and three of their last five were notched up by the nowabsent Koroma.

Last season Town conceded less frequently when Fraizer Campbell was on the pitch than was the case for any other first-team regular, indicative of his hard-working efforts as the first defender in a high press.

This season, his presence in the side means Town as a collective score more frequently than with any other regular starter, suggesting (as Corberan has asserted) that he is helping create space for other people to get among the goals.

But Town could do with Campbell adapting once more to pull a Steve Mounie by popping up as a regular goalscorer – at least until they are able to revert back to plan A.

Last season Town conceded less frequently when Campbell was

on the pitch