Caretaker boss confirmed plus injury news in Huddersfield Town digest
Jon Worthington will take temporary charge of the team following Darren Moore's dismissal
We’ve already had our say at some length on today’s news between our five conclusions on the QPR game and our reaction after Darren Moore’s dismissal was confirmed.
Huddersfield Town are now actively seeking out their next permanent manager, with chief executive Jake Edwards suggesting via a club statement that they want someone for the long term, rather than a pure firefighter manager — though of course the new appointment’s first job will be to turn around results quickly to ensure Town remain a Championship club.
As ever after a managerial departure, the size of that job is hard to assess. Was Moore doing the best job possible with a poor squad, with the sheer number of draws representing the best this side could do? After all, even Neil Warnock managed just two wins in seven at the start of the season, one of which was against bottom side Rotherham.
Or, as Town hope, will they now be able to find someone who can get better out of these players than Moore was able, helped along by the new arrivals the outgoing manager barely got a chance to work with? Could a different manager find a way to turn those many, many draws into the full three points?
In either case, we can probably expect at least some difficult days ahead. Improvements have to be found at both ends of the pitch, but most especially in attack: Moore’s side scored less than a goal per game under his management. They scored at least twice in just three of Moore’s games in charge — all of which were victories.
We have seen this side getting to grips with a new style of play over the past few months, even if the results haven’t been there, and those foundations can remain in place: after all, they’ve just spent a month expensively recruiting new players to play that way.
Where Town are now, their next appointment needs to be someone who knows how to add a ruthless cutting edge to the work Moore and his staff have done over the past few months so they can start turning their constant 1-1 draws into 2-1 wins.
Ins and outs
As you will no doubt be aware, Darren Moore has been relieved of his duties, alongside four members of his coaching staff: Jamie Smith, Jimmy Shan, Simon Ireland, and Adriano Basso.
The club have now also confirmed that academy manager Jon Worthington will take caretaker charge of the club while they look for Moore’s replacement. He will be assisted in leading the side against Sheffield Wednesday this weekend by recently-appointed B team manager Kevin Russell and B team coach Michael Tonge.
Just the one transfer movement to report since last week’s edition of the digest: Loick Ayina has joined Scottish Premiership side Ross County on loan for the rest of the season. The centre-back made his debut by playing the full 90 minutes in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat away to league leaders Celtic.
The transfer window closes this Thursday, 1st February, at 11pm.
What’s been said
“What a disappointing ending!!! That was tough to watch the last 5 minutes. Players battled. We should have won again instead hanging on for a draw after dominating much of the match.”
— Town chairman Kevin Nagle, on X, following Sunday’s 1-1 draw with QPR.
“We have to make this decision to give us the best chance of maintaining our Sky Bet Championship status come the end of the season.
“Darren is a fantastic man, and he has worked tirelessly since taking the job back in September. I know I speak for everyone at the club in wishing him the very best for the future.
“We appointed Darren on the strength of his credentials as a manager, but it is now clear that this has not worked as we envisaged and hoped. There have absolutely been mitigating circumstances, such as the high number of injuries that Darren has had to cope with, but we have still not seen enough on the pitch in terms of results or the direction of travel in playing style and performances.
“I believe that our current squad is capable of more, particularly on the back of the work we have carried out in this transfer window, and we’re quickly moving to identify the right person to lead them through a crucial period of the season. We hope to make that managerial appointment soon.”
— Kevin Nagle, via a club statement, explaining the decision to dismiss Darren Moore
“I want to begin by echoing the Chairman’s comments in thanking Darren for his total commitment to the club during his time here.
“This was not a decision that we made lightly, but we believe it is one that we had to take. We still have 17 games to be played this season, and that still gives us the chance to positively impact our results and position in the league table.
“We’re looking for our next appointment to have a big short-term impact, but also to fit with our longer-term strategy of building an attack-minded, progressive style of football over a number of seasons.”
— Town chief executive Jake Edwards, in the same club statement
Coming up next
It’s another relegation six-pointer for Town next with Sheffield Wednesday set to visit the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday.
The Owls were managerless the last time the two sides met back in early October following Xisco Munoz’s swift dismissal as Darren Moore’s successor; this time the role will be reversed.
Wednesday have looked like a different side since appointing former Bayern Munich and Germany assistant manager Danny Rohl to the job.
It took Wednesday a little bit of time to get going under the new gaffer, taking just four points from his first seven games in charge, but they eventually hit their stride and have taken 15 points from their ten games since the beginning of December. Town, by comparison, have taken just 9 from 11 in that span.
That makes Wednesday the in-form side coming into this game, and it’s imperative that Town stop them in their tracks when the whistle blows at 3pm.
Wednesday are just six points behind the Terriers with a game in hand, so defeat for Town would not just open up the possibility of QPR overtaking them by beating Blackburn on Saturday: it would also put the risk of slipping down to 23rd entirely out of their own hands.
Huddersfield Town injuries and absences
Matty Pearson returned for a late cameo away to QPR on Sunday afternoon, marking the end of his eight-game spell out with a calf injury.
Radinio Balker made his debut after missing out last weekend away to Blackburn Rovers, but Michal Helik went off injured to make way for him. Moore’s post-match press conference came too soon for the now-departed manager to offer any kind of prognosis on the Polish international.
Yuta Nakayama remains away on international duty at the Asian Cup and will be hoping to keep his place in the side after finally being called into action in their final group stage game last week – a 3-1 victory over Indonesia that has earned them a round of 16 clash with Bahrain on Wednesday. That game kicks off at 11:30am UK time.
Scott High returned from the hamstring injury that spelt the end of his loan spell at Ross County last week, playing half an hour of the B team’s 1-1 draw with Wrexham on Tuesday afternoon. Tom Iorpenda, Brahima Diarra and Kyle Hudlin all got significant minutes under their belts in that game too.
That means Town still have ten absentees in the squad. Goalkeepers Chris Maxwell and Jacob Chapman remain ruled out with hamstring and ankle injuries respectively, while left-backs Jaheim Headley (ankle) and Josh Ruffels (groin) are long-standing absentees.
So too are wingers Delano Burgzorg (ankle) and Pat Jones (hamstring), as well as centre-forwards Kian Harratt (hamstring) and Danny Ward (Achilles).
No timescales have been provided for any of those eight players, while Nakayama could be away until the middle of February if Japan progress all the way to the Asian Cup final.
Jack Rudoni meanwhile paid tribute to Ollie Turton after scoring against QPR, producing a ‘Turton 20’ shirt as a message of support to the right-back who has suffered a second successive (but different) knee injury and has been ruled out for the rest of the season.
We Are Terriers podcast live show
We’re delighted to announce that David Hartrick and I will record an episode of the We Are Terriers podcast live at Magic Rock Huddersfield Taproom on Wednesday 13th March following the annual general meeting of the Huddersfield Town Supporters’ Association.
The AGM will take place at 6:30pm, with the podcast recording pencilled in for an 8pm start, though the exact timing may vary.
Attendance is free for all HTSA members. You can register for the event here — and if you’re not an HTSA member already, you can become one for the next 12 months for just £1. Sign up here.
Predicted Huddersfield Town line-up to face Sheffield Wednesday
The change of shape against QPR – or in fact, two changes of shape – coupled with Moore’s departure — has opened the door to a whole new range of possibilities when it comes to predicting the side for this Saturday’s Yorkshire derby relegation six-pointer at the John Smith’s Stadium, as we’re all very elegantly and succinctly calling it.
Town played a 4-2-3-1-cum-4-3-3 for much of the game against QPR (that’s two slightly different formations operating fluidly, not two teams’ worth of players doing something extremely questionable in midfield), before switching to a 4-4-2 midway through the second half, so we’ll take a cue from that.
Our gut feeling is that at home Town will want to get both new centre-forwards playing in their preferred role, which means we’re going to predict the 4-4-2.
Unless Town were to go for a diamond with Sorba Thomas at number 10, that gives us a decision to make in midfield. While we like what we’ve seen of Alex Matos so far, we can’t see Jonathan Hogg making way, so we’re going to have to predict the Chelsea loanee makes way so Josh Koroma can come in on the wing.
Predicted Huddersfield Town line-up to face Sheffield Wednesday: (4-4-2): Lee Nicholls; Brodie Spencer, Michal Helik/Radinio Balker, Tom Lees, Ben Jackson; Sorba Thomas, Jonathan Hogg, Jack Rudoni, Josh Koroma; Rhys Healey, Bojan Radulovic.
Substitutes: Giosue Bellagambi, Matty Pearson, Tom Edwards/Radinio Balker, Brahima Diarra, Tom Iorpenda, David Kasumu, Alex Matos, Ben Wiles, Kyle Hudlin.
Huddersfield Town Women
Town Women suffered similar heartbreak to their male counterparts on Sunday afternoon, twice going ahead in their FA WNL Cup quarter-final against Halifax only for their local rivals to fight back from behind both times and ultimately run out 3-2 winners.
Freya Walton put Town 0-1 up, but their lead lasted just six minutes before former Terrier Lucy Sowerby equalised.
Yasmin Mason restored Town’s lead before the break, but Halifax scored twice in the second half — including a penalty — to dump Town out of the cup.
Their battle against relegation is set to resume with a trip to face mid-table Derby County on Sunday 11th February.
Our schedule
We’re naturally going to have to be a bit flexible over the next week or two, depending on any further developments either in the hunt for the next manager or in the final few days of the transfer window.
We’ll actually be recording the podcast as this post goes out, if everything goes according to our diabolical plan. Well, less diabolical; more just…regular. But that doesn’t sound as good.
For a limited time we’re offering a seven-day free trial to all new subscribers, but you’ll need to move quickly if you want to give that a go. You’ll get full access to all our written and podcast content in that time.
We’ll be keeping out a watchful eye for any further transfer business in or out ahead of Thursday night’s deadline. If there’s any new players looking like coming in (or even confirmed), we’ll have a scouting report for you as usual.
Either way, our backers can expect our final thoughts on how the month’s trading has gone once the window has officially closed — we’ll be aiming for late Thursday night/first thing Friday morning for that.
Then of course there’s the small matter of yet another massive game at the weekend. Player ratings free to read for all and five conclusions to follow for our backers, as ever.