CRUNCH TIME Focus key in play-off push
AFTER a two-week international break, Huddersfield Town kick off their end-of season run-in away to Hull City tonight – knowing that there is little margin for error in their hunt for a place in the end-of-season play-offs.
Carlos Corberan’s side have seven games to hang onto their shot at promotion to the Premier League, and with three six-pointers to follow, they could really do with coming back from East Yorkshire with the three points.
That’s always easier said than done in the Championship, though, even against a newly-promoted team that currently sits 20th in the table yet look to be all but safe from getting pulled into a relegation battle before the end of the season.
So what do Town need to do better than they did in taking just one point from their last three games?
Not something they can do on the day but which they have hopefully been able to do over the two-week international break after looking in need of a rest against Bournemouth going into the hiatus.
Levi Colwill played two lots of 90 minutes for England under-21s last Friday and Tuesday, Sorba Thomas played the whole game for Wales on Tuesday evening, Danel Sinani played 133 minutes across two games for Luxembourg and Scott High played one from the start and one from the bench for Scotland under-21s.
But other than that Corberan’s firstteam squad have had two weeks of recovery, with Tino Anjorin not involved for England under20s despite being named in the squad.
If we’re right about that being the primary cause of Town’s poor performances against Millwall and Bournemouth, they should look a lot better now.
Corberan noted after the Bournemouth game that he felt things had been a bit rushed at times as his players looked for high-risk, highreward balls rather than weighing up their options more carefully.
Town have been unusually sloppy on the ball over the past couple of games, which has seen them take a couple of backwards steps from the calm, composed, confident side we saw right up until around minute 80 at West Brom.
Patience does not have to mean knocking it between the back four all game – it just means knowing when it’s the right time to go for a well-worked opening, rather than trying to force the issue and leaving yourselves vulnerable on the counterattack.
If they can get back to that, it should not just keep things tighter at the back; it should allow them to get back to creating better chances, too.
Corberan’s first-team squad have had two weeks of recovery
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It was clear that Gary Rowett had come up with the ideal game-plan for countering Huddersfield Town’s strengths and exposing their weaknesses, even before he detailed that approach to us at his post-match press conference – getting behind Sorba Thomas, exposing Jon Russell for pace, and cutting off the passing options in midfield.