Terriers hoping to Russell up a new goal threat
AFTER the Terriers’ defeat to Queens Park Rangers last week, we lamented their lack of a scoring midfielder capable of arriving late into the box to apply the vital finishing touch to the many promising attacking moves the side has put together this season.
When he was at his best Juninho Bacuna was able to provide that for Huddersfield Town, but he departed for Rangers in the summer. But Carlos Corberan does have a player who they hope to train into that role.
A summer arrival after being released by Chelsea’s academy, Jon Russell has spent the first few months steadily working his way towards the first team by playing B-team football.
With Duane Holmes and Danel Sinani clearly preferred in more advanced positions, Josh Ruffels is primarily there to offer an alternative to Harry Toffolo, and Reece Brown seems to be nowhere near the side, leaving Lewis O’Brien and Scott High as the only recognised senior central midfielders in the absence of Jonathan Hogg and Alex Vallejo.
A look at the bench for the past few games makes it clear the next out-and-out midfielder in the pecking order is Russell, a player who most fans will have seen for the first and only time during his injury-time cameo against West Bromwich Albion.
Standing 6’3” tall, it might be easy to assume his best use would be as a muscular defensiveminded midfielder to help close out games - exactly the role he played against West Brom.
Certainly, that is one facet to his game, and in that respect he offers something different to Town’s existing squad options even when everyone is fit.
Holmes, High, Hogg and O’Brien are not exactly the tallest players around, and while Vallejo stands roughly eye-to-eye with Russell, the Spaniard’s strengths are much more about what he does with the ball on the floor.
But Town’s hope for Russell is that over the longer term, they will be able to turn him into a midfield goal threat, arriving into the box from deep positions.
It may take time for that to come to fruition for Russell, whose goalscoring record both at youth level and when on loan at Accrington last season (two in 25) suggests he has a bit of a way to go.
But Corberan is clearly pleased with what he has seen on the training pitch so far, saying last week: “He’s a player we’re working with as more of a medium-term project.
“Even knowing that he was playing last year in League One we knew we were going to need to spend some time with him to work, and that is exactly what we wanted.
“But it’s true that in the last three or four weeks we’ve accelerated that adaptation to the first team, for two reasons.
“First of all because as soon as we lost Vallejo in the game against Blackburn it was necessary to be thinking how we could solve a situation in case Hoggy was injured.
“The second thing is that he has accelerated the situation by himself because when I was watching the B team I was watching a player who was always offering something different that our players who play in that position can offer to the team.”
Russell may need to content himself with a place from the bench for now, and there are understandably doubts about his ability to perform at Championship level having never done so before.
But by working his way onto the bench and previously played wide in a front three for the B team (scoring two excellent goals against Watford in the Premier League Cup from the left, for instance), Russell has made himself an option for at least two positions – three, if Town were to change back to a three-man midfield requiring a holding midfielder, a position that Corberan feels is not the best use of High.
As Towno look to find ways to improve their ailing attack after just five goals in their last eight games, every option should be considered.