Dan finally shows that he can be the man for Corberan
dence that they would be any better this time round despite the arrival of eight new signings?
But the three games that have come since then have only shown just how right Corberan was to draw that line - and the various travails of the clubs Town have taken points off this season have shown the wisdom in the club’s conservative approach to last season.
When Town were one of the only sides making significant cuts, it put them at a major disadvantage against opponents who had carried on spending like the pandemic did not affect them.
But Derby, Preston, Reading, and to a lesser extent Sheffield United, have all shown that there are sides in this division who are now going through exactly what the Terriers did last year.
We thought Town’s opening run of fixtures this season looked challenging, but as it turns out it has actually proven to be pretty generous when you dig into the various problems that have seized their opponents.
Town perhaps just caught Preston at the right time, but Reading’s squad is now so thin their bench for this game contained five teenagers. So did Derby’s on the opening day. Sheffield United have been able to make just one signing this summer.
Town, meanwhile, had to drop two of their best players so far this season in Scott High and Naby Sarr to get their last two Player of the Year winners into midfield and Tuesday nigh’s goalscorer Tom Lees in at centre-back - a player who at age 30 has captained two clubs and made more than 500 career appearances.
The only teenager in the Town squad was 18-year-old Chelsea loanee Levi Colwill, who will spend the international break with England under-21s.
Their only other youngsters were O’Brien, Thomas and Josh Koroma - three of their best players - plus unused substitute High, who has spent the early weeks of this season making a strong case for a place in the starting line-up on merit, rather than out of a lack of alternatives.
Forward planning paying
Who knew?
off!
WAIT...TWO weeks in a row praising two different centre forwards? Is this really Huddersfield we’re talking about?
Let’s just check quickly...yep! Blue and white stripes, John Smith’s Stadium...all checks out. Incredible.
Plenty of fans seeing the line-up for Saturday’s game will have made a little face when they got to Danny Ward’s name. But credit to the striker, he was really good.
Our praise for Fraizer Campbell after the Sheffield United and Everton games came in the form of acknowledging him as Town’s best player for hassling defenders and providing a link between the midfield and the attack, while acknowledging he did not have the most to offer in front of goal.
We are used to seeing Ward struggle to have anything like that kind of impact on games, and the infamous scouting report we prepared after his return to the club suggested he had been targeted as a pure finisher.
But this was a really good all-round centre forward performance, with Ward offering both a focal point to help get attacks started and a viable target to aim crosses at in the middle.
Had he not unselfishly left Thomas’ cross for the better-placed O’Brien to tap home for the opener, Ward’s first goal of the season might have come half an hour sooner than it did, but there were two or three other occasions when he put himself in good positions to score, only to find himself thwarted by a wayward final cross or a good bit of blocking by the Reading defence.
But there was more to his game than that, with nearly all of his touches actually coming around the halfway line.
We gave him the benefit of the doubt for his showing against Preston after finding out he had gone off feeling unwell, but whatever the cause, he was unable to make anything stick to him in that game - a trend that had become sadly familiar for Ward.
Against Reading, his hold up play was good.
Several times he offered the defence a desperate out ball and successfully shielded it under significant pressure from defenders before bringing a driving midfielder into play - he continued that work into the final third too, creating two shooting chances for team-mates the same number as Koroma.
One good performance does not equal a turnaround and a more wellrounded centre forward must surely remain close to the top of Town’s wishlist if they are able to get any further business done by the end of today’s transfer deadline day.
It is perhaps worth remembering most of Ward’s appearances last season came after the rot had already set in on Town’s campaign, and that until this game he had largely been confined to acting in a massively isolated front two in sides that were designed to absorb punishment rather than dish it out.
Here, what Ward did was all quite simple, but when other players are available around him to take care of the flair, it can be very effective.