Town cannot plan higher than safety, insists Mounie as Mbenza signs on
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN’S one-time record signing Steve Mounie expects the Premier League to be even tougher this time around.
The Terriers yesterday beat the transfer deadline to bring winger Isaac Mbenza in on loan from Ligue 1 club Montpellier for the season with the Yorkshire club having the option to make the deal permanent next summer for around £10m.
Mbenza, a Belgium Under-21s international, is a former teammate of Mounie. The pair built up a decent understanding with La Paillade, regulars at the French club vividly remembering a 3-0 victory over Nancy in February, 2017, that saw the duo score all three goals.
Head coach David Wagner will be hoping for more of the same during a season that Mounie believes will provide an even stiffer test for Yorkshire’s sole representative in the top flight.
“Achieving our goal of staying in the Premier League was very special,” said last season’s top scorer to The Yorkshire Post. “We did not care about the (league) position just that we did it. And we did.
“You saw the joy at the end of the Chelsea game. The feeling of survival was incredible. When you look at the size of the club and the budget compared to all the other clubs we did something very special.
“But this is now in the past. This season will be harder than the last one. There are some very good teams coming up like Wolverhampton (Wanderers) and Fulham. They are a big club.
“I watched Cardiff last season and they did well. Difficult team to play against. It will be harder.
“That means the target for Huddersfield is the same: to stay up. We cannot get carried away and plan higher. The goal has to be to stay up because nothing has changed compared to last season.
“We are still a team with a small budget who has to fight to the very end. That is what we are, fighters.”
Mbenza’s move apart, the final day of the permanent transfer window was a sedate affair in Yorkshire.
Michael Hefele did leave the John Smith’s Stadium for Nottingham Forest in a £500,000 deal, while Jason McCarthy joined Wycombe Wanderers from Barnsley as Ricky Holmes left Sheffield United on loan for Oxford United.
But otherwise all was quiet with the loan window remaining open until August 31 for all Football League clubs explaining why there was so little activity in the county before the 5pm cut-off to get permanent deals done.
Mbenza, meanwhile, arrives in Huddersfield on the back of netting eight times in Ligue 1 last term, meaning only Giovanni Sio, with ten, eclipsed the 22-yearold’s tally in Montpellier colours. Mounie had finished 2016-17 as the French club’s top scorer with 14 goals.
Town’s then record signing – Terence Kongolo assumed that mantle this summer following his £16m move from Monaco – found goals harder to come by in England with his 28 league appearances yielding seven.
But Mounie insists that first year with Huddersfield will stand him in good stead once the new season gets under way tomorrow with the visit of Chelsea.
“I had time over the summer to think about the season,” said the striker ahead of tomorrow’s opening-day clash.
“The main thing in my mind was that we had stayed up. That is all that mattered.
“But, of course, I took a lot of experience from my first year in England. I learned a lot. I will keep those in my mind and it can help me this season.
“I had to adapt to a new style of championship. I was from Ligue 1 and this was new, and a new country.
“Early on I learned how to live in England and play in this league. I had to adapt quickly, but now I can use those lessons to help me in the new season.”
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN are about to tackle a conundrum that music bands have been tussling with for decades.
Namely how do you follow a hugely impressive debut with another stellar offering that will not only justify all the hype, but also keep you at the very top.
The ‘curse of the second album’, as it is known in musical circles has struck many bands down the years. For every Nevermind by Nirvana, surely as good a follow-up to a decent first offering as you’ll find, there is the Second Comin’ by The Stone Roses. Far from the worst LP to sit on a turntable, admittedly, but still a huge letdown considering the majesty of what had gone before on the Manchester band’s eponymous debut.
As the Roses proved, and no doubt countless football clubs will testify, the hardest part is not necessarily reaching the top, it is staying there.
Head coach David Wagner’s task, therefore, is to ensure Huddersfield do not go the way of Hull City, who twice in the past decade have been relegated at the end of a second year in the Premier League.
The German has certainly been busy. Isaac Mbenza, a Belgium Under-21s international, yesterday became the ninth arrival of the summer just a few minutes before the transfer window slammed shut.
For the second consecutive close season Huddersfield have spent around £40m.
Not so long ago such a sum was not far short of four times the club’s entire annual turnover. But promotion – and the riches that come with a place at the top table of English football – have transformed the landscape at the John Smith’s Stadium to such an extent that snapping up a World Cup winner with Erik Durm’s pedigree is no longer front-page news.
Nor is splashing £16m on Terence Kongolo, who in the process of making last season’s loan stay permanent became the club’s fourth record signing inside 12 months.
Kongolo followed the example of Jonas Lossl and Florent Hadergjonaj, who had earlier committed their futures to Town after impressing on loan in 2017-18.
All three, as it stands, warrant a place in Town’s first-choice XI, though the form in pre-season of Ben Hamer, a free transfer arrival from Leicester City, suggests Lossl may yet have a big battle on his hands to remain first-choice goalkeeper.
Wagner was understandably delighted to retain the trio, not least because they arrived back for pre-season already fully up to speed with the methods of the German head coach.
“Having only a few new faces is very different to our last two preseasons,” said the Terriers’ chief to The Yorkshire Post.
“Then we had 12, 13, 14 new players each time. But now it is easier to bring things together because many of the squad were already used to what we think and what we have to do.”
The flipside to all this spending on new faces, of course, is that others have had to leave.
Michael Hefele, a hugely popular figure at the John Smith’s Stadium, yesterday became the latest high-profile departure when joining Nottingham Forest in a £500,000 deal.
His loss will be keenly felt by supporters and team-mates alike. Those of us in the media were also sad to see the affable defender go.
Hefele could always be guaranteed to be a fun interviewee. He also had a lovely turn of phrase, a personal favourite being the explanation as to why he had mimed firing a bow and arrow after successfully dispatching a penalty in the play-off semi-final shoot-out victory over Sheffield Wednesday.
“Robin Hood takes from the rich and gives to the poor,” he said with his trademark beaming smile.
“When you see Sheffield (Wednesday) they are a huge club. Compared to them, we are small.”
Others to leave included Scott Malone and Tom Ince, the latter in a club record £10m deal. Both played their part last season not least Ince with a winner against Watford that surely means he will not have to buy a drink on any future visits to Kirklees.
But if Huddersfield’s amazing progress of the past two years was to be maintained in the upcoming season then Wagner simply had to upgrade.
Durm, if he can stay fit, certainly fulfils that requirement at left-back, while Ramadan Sobhi, Adama Diakhaby and Mbenza all arrive with bags of potential.
Of those Ramadan has looked the most threatening in pre-season and Stoke City’s loss could prove to be very much Huddersfield’s gain as the Yorkshire club look to improve on last season’s goals tally of just 28.
Of course the proof as to whether Wagner has got it right on the recruitment front will be revealed in the coming weeks and months.
But, judging by how quickly the new faces have settled in and the increased attacking threat that Town possessed the longer pre-season wore on, this socalled difficult second season for the Terriers may well prove to be nothing of the sort.
Having only a few new faces is very different to our last two pre-seasons. David Wagner, Huddersfield Town’s head coach.