It’s the most wonderful Team of the Year! STEVEN CHICKEN

WHO WERE TOWN’S KEY PLAYERS OF 2020? RUNS THE RULE OVER THE SQUAD

WHO have been Town’s top performers of 2020? Everyone has an opinion – even if we can’t currently meet up to discuss our favourites over a pint.

We’ve taken a more scientific route to choose the Examiner’s Team of the Year.

To maintain some level of objectivity we went back through every single player rating given by both the Examiner and the Terriers faithful on the Yorkshire Live website throughout the year.

We then worked out which players had overperformed the rest of their team-mates most often in any given game and plucked out the top 11 players who would fit into a reasonable formation. We also set a 10-game minimum for our first XI. (A couple of players who didn’t quite reach 10 games but had excellent scores made our bench, however.)

As it turns out all that work was a complete waste of time anyway because we ended up just picking the team we jotted down on a notepad before we even opened up our spreadsheets. football this year.

It bodes well for the future that if we didn’t have the ten-game minimum, this would easily have been Ryan Schofield’s place. The emerging young keeper’s outing against Watford on December 19 especially stands out: it was rated as the second-best individual performance in a Town shirt in 2020 by both us and Town fans.

Huddersfield Town’s two finest signings of the year were both fullbacks, with Pipa slotting into the side so seamlessly that Danny Simpson’s run in the side now feels like it happened years ago.

The small, speedy and skilful right-back made an immediate impression on his debut against Norwich City and draws awed comment from neutral or opposition journalists at practically every game we go to with his pace and trickery. It’s surprising how little he is caught out at the back, either.

At 6.58 out of 10, Pipa has the highest average player rating of any Terriers player in the calendar year. done for pace, but no other Terriers defender comes even close to him for aerial dominance in his own penalty box.

He had also adapted to Carlos Corberan’s style better than many would have hoped before picking up his current hamstring injury last month. He faces a fight to get his place back when he returns, but we’re looking at the team of 2020 here, not trying to predict the team of 2021.

Even the most starry-owed Town fan with memories of Wembley playing on a continuous mental look would have to concede that the Terriers captain has not been at his former imperious best this year, but he has nonetheless been largely consistent, and that earns him his place in this side ahead of the very upand-down Naby Sarr.

The high point of Schindler’s year came in his superb showing in the middle of a back three away to Swansea in October, where he made an astounding number of blocks, interceptions and clearances to help the side claim a huge statement victory.

Mind you, if Rarmani EdmondsGreen had made just one more appearance, he would almost certainly have got in ahead of Schindler here based on the numbers. have been as reliable as his presence in the side:

No Town player has made more assists in 2020 than Toffolo’s seven, indicative of his tireless ability to get up and down the left flank without shirking his defensive duties. Add his three goals to those assists and you get the picture of arguably Town’s single most dangerous player.

It’s especially pleasing that Toffolo has developed good relationships with whoever plays alongside and ahead of him - usually Lewis O’Brien and either Karlan Grant or Josh Koroma, but sometimes Carel Eiting or Juninho Bacuna. Whoever it is, he tends to thrive. One of Town’s best signings in years.

We have to confess we made a bit of an executive decision here as the stats suggested this should actually be Trevoh Chalobah’s place.

But it was incredibly close between the two (less than 1% difference), the Chelsea loanee made fewer than half as many appearances as Hogg, and a fair few of

Chalobah’s best outings actually came at right-back rather than in midfield.

The long-serving midfielder has been a near-constant present in the side this year and his excellent form over the last couple of months means we think he’s emerging as a serious contender for player of the season.

Lewis O’Brien

After winning player of the season for 2019/20 it’s no surprise that O’Brien would also make our best XI for the calendar year.

The midfielder had to play his way back into form after suffering an injury in the summer but has recently showed signs he is slowly but surely ramping back up to the brilliant best he showed throughout February especially.

O’Brien joins Stearman in having taken five Town man of the match awards this year, one of which was in that incredible 2-1 win over West Brom that ensured Town’s safety from relegation. That performance was one of just three 9s we’ve given out this year and was rated as the second-best individual performance by a Terrier in 2020.