‘We have a good team and I hope we will show this on Saturday’
NEW Huddersfield Town head coach Andre Breitenreiter has called on his side to show their ‘best performance’ in his first game in charge at Watford this afternoon.
The fifth-from-bottom Terriers take on the 11th-placed Hornets at Vicarage Road today, as the club’s new era under the German begins.
Today’s opponents have registered 11 wins, 11 draws and 11 defeats from 33 Championship matches played, recording 44 points to date and head into the game off the back of a 1-0 win at bottom side
Rotherham United last time out.
Breitenreiter has been working with his new side since Tuesday and insists his team are ready for the first challenge of his tenure.
“We know many things about Watford, because we prepared yesterday (Tuesday). Tomorrow (Thursday) we will do this on the pitch, our plan to take the players with us. Everything is prepared,” Breitenreiter said at his first press conference on Wednesday.
“I know about the manager (Valerien Ismael), he trained in Germany and also in my hometown city Hannover. We are very respectful for Watford, but we speak about our team. It’s important that the players are respectful to Watford, but they have to believe in this, what we want to do on the pitch.
“We want to show our style of play, what is possible we will see, but we’ll try to and tomorrow (Thursday) we will show them our plan for this game and we need all the players for this game, not [only] the starting 11 but also the substitutes.
“We need 90 minutes, maybe some more, to show our best performance. Watford has a good team, good strikers, but we have a very good team and I hope that we will see this on Saturday.”
The Terriers suffered defeat last time out as they conceded deep into injury-time to lose 2-1 at home to Hull City last Saturday.
Breitenreiter watched that game from the stands following his appointment last Thursday and the new head coach acknowledged that Town should have been more proactive when they equalised late on.
“When there are any doubts during the game, you think positive,” he said.
“Maybe last Saturday was really unlucky, they deserved a point and maybe it was a little mistake like in the past.
“Normally you should go forward to score the second, because you equalised and then you fell down and went deep and you lost the game.
“You cannot change everything in two or three weeks, it takes time. We don’t have so much time but we’ll try to.” Town remain precariously placed above the drop zone with 13 games of the season remaining.
They are two points above third-frombottom QPR, having registered 34 points from 33 matches played to date.
Breitenreiter has penned a two-and-a-half year contract with the Terriers, but is immediately focused on securing the club’s Championship status this season before looking forward.
“First, stay in the league. This is really important, we have to speak about this, then we speak in the summer about the new goals,” the head coach said.
“Maybe we expect a boring season (next time around), but I have to concentrate for this situation now, for this moment, to give all the best with all the players to stay in the league.
“We have some hard games, but the potential is so high in the last games, they have shown it’s 100 per cent possible to stay in the league and to win games. I hope we start on Saturday with a win and we will do our best for this.”
We want to show our style of play, what is possible we will see Andre Breitenreiter
‘They have shown it is 100 per cent possible to win games and stay in this league’ ANDRE BREITENREIETR