Huddersfield Town digest: Injury latest ahead of crucial Easter weekend
Plus how the Terriers' international representatives fared, Kevin Nagle's take on Town's lack of a winning culture, and a massive local derby
Huddersfield Town injuries and absences
Sorba Thomas will serve a one-match ban against Coventry for his red card against Rotherham United last time out.
Tom Lees missed the trip to Rotherham with calf issue, and Andre Breitenreiter confirmed at his Wednesday afternoon press conference that the centre-back is now expected to miss several weeks.
Bojan Radulovic was also absent at the New York Stadium following a back issue that had limited his minutes on the training pitch in the build-up to the game, but the striker has trained fully over the whole international break.
Rhys Healey returned to training before the international break and is now back in contention as another centre-forward option, though Breitenreiter acknowledged he may only be ready to play 20-30 minutes at this point rather than the full 90.
Everyone who has come back from international duty has come back fit — although Pat Jones has not had a chance to train with the rest of the squad having returned from Wales under-21s late on Tuesday evening, and is unlikely to be considered for selection on Friday as a result.
Yuta Nakayama (knee), Josh Ruffels (groin) and Ollie Turton (knee) are all ruled out for the season, while Kian Harratt is suspended for the rest of the campaign.
Coming up next
The traditional Easter weekend double-header is now upon us, with Town taking on Coventry City at the John Smith’s Stadium on Friday before making the trip to Stoke City on Monday.
Coventry have been in superb form over the past few months after making a poor start to the season, and now have hopes of adding yet another Wembley trip to last year’s play-off final defeat to Luton and their upcoming FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United.
Mark Robins’ side have lost just three of their past 22 games in all competitions to go eighth, just four points off sixth-placed Norwich with a game in hand.
Stoke have struggled this season and are just two points ahead of Town, although recent victories over Middlesbrough and Preston have given them some hope of breaking their rancid form.
The Potters have particularly struggled for goals at the Bet365 Stadium this season, scoring just 14 times in their 19 home games in the league — four of which were on the opening day against Rotherham.
Town’s 3pm trip to Staffordshire will be broadcast live on Sky Sports.
You can find a more detailed breakdown of Town’s final eight-game run-in and what they’re up against here.
Predicted Huddersfield Town line-up to face Coventry
3-5-2: Lee Nicholls; Matty Pearson, Michal Helik, Radinio Balker; Brodie Spencer, David Kasumu, Jonathan Hogg, Jack Rudoni, Jaheim Headley; Danny Ward, Delano Burgzorg.
Substitutes: Chris Maxwell, Tom Edwards, Ben Jackson, Brahima Diarra, Alex Matos, Ben Wiles, Josh Koroma, Rhys Healey, Bojan Radulovic.
Elsewhere in the relegation battle this weekend
Results to watch out for on Friday (3pm KO unless noted):
Millwall v West Brom (1pm)
Sheffield Wednesday v Swansea
Norwich v Plymouth
Hull v Stoke
QPR v Birmingham
Blackburn v Ipswich
And on Monday:
Plymouth v Bristol City
Birmingham v Preston
Rotherham v Millwall
Sunderland v Blackburn
Middlesbrough v Sheffield Wednesday
Swansea v QPR
Ins and outs
Goalkeeper Jacob Chapman has joined Rochdale on loan for the rest of the season. He kept a clean sheet on his debut, helping Dale claim a 1-0 win over Maidenhead United on Saturday afternoon.
International duty
Brodie Spencer earned two more caps by twice playing the full 90 minutes in a pair of friendlies for Northern Ireland, starting at left-back in their 1-1 draw away to Romania and putting in an eye-catching turn in their 0-1 win over Scotland.
Radinio Balker received his first international call-up, heading out to represent Suriname in their 1-1 friendly draw with Martinique in the Netherlands on Saturday. Suriname is geographically in South America, but is part of CONCACAF alongside North American and Caribbean nations.
Brahima Diarra was called up for Mali under-23s and claimed an assist in their 3-1 friendly win over Japan.
Pat Jones played an encouraging 75 minutes for Wales under-21s as they beat Lithuania 2-1 in qualification for next summer’s U21 Euros in Slovakia. Wales sit level on points with Denmark at the top of their group, with the Danes holding a game in hand.
Conor Falls was meanwhile called up for Northern Ireland under-21s for a friendly defeat to the Czech Republic and a 1-2 Euros qualifying win over Serbia.
Gio Bellagambi was part of the Uganda squad that lost 4-0 to Comoros and claimed an impressive 2-2 draw against Ghana in another set of friendlies. Shane Maroodza was twice an unused substitute for Zimbabwe in a 2-2 draw with Zambia and a 3-1 loss to Kenya.
What’s been said
“Our goal is to hang on, stay in the Championship, and next year I believe will be very different. We understand a lot more things now than when we bought the club in eight days and we couldn’t do a whole lot.
“I’m not makng any excuses, because I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I think we know what to do now.
“I think the reflection is: we’ve spent a lot of money trying to improve the club, that’s on and off the pitch. Whether it shows itself when they go to home matches, it will next year, even if it doesn’t right now, and there’s a lot that we have in store.
“I believe that no question, the best is yet to come. We have to eat a little humble pie right now — and those other guys, they’re making fun of us.
“We’re going to be a lot more competitive. Our academy is going to be much stronger, it’s going to produce players for us. We’re going to have a deeper coaching staff, and we’re going to have also a lot of thought on how we move forward. We’ve got to create a winning culture, and right now we just don’t have it.”
— Kevin Nagle believes better days lay ahead for Town if they can survive the drop
“We had a mix of recovery days and also hard training days. For the first time this season we had some double sessions, which the boys did really well and deserved their free weekend. They trained with mentality and focus for the next task so I’m pleased with the work they’ve done.
“We used the chance to have long sessions and to train in details, in defending and also in attack. In the final pass we need a bit more quality: we saw that last match, where we created many opportunities but needed the last pass so we could finish and score goals.
“The highest priority has been attacking, defending and set pieces — so the whole game! We want to improve in a short time. I’ve been here six weeks and we’ve improved and developed in many things, and the stats show that, but it’s not reflected in the result.
“I know many supporters were disappointed after the 0-0 at Rotherham, but normally when you play for 35 minutes with ten men you are happy with a point. You couldn’t see we were playing with ten men and that was positive. But we should finish the game with 11 players: it’s cost us four points from the games against Leeds and Rotherham.
“We’re positive about the improvement but now we need the points.”
— Andre Breitenreiter, at his pre-match press conference on Wednesday afternoon
“Jacob has needed to stand up and be counted a number of times this season, and has done so admirably on each occasion that he’s been asked to. Both as a back-up goalkeeper on our bench and as a starter due to injury, too, he has shown glimpses of his potential and what he’s made of.
“Sadly, with both Lee Nicholls and Chris Maxwell regaining full fitness and Jacob suffering his own injury setback at inopportune times for him, the opportunity to secure a loan in January was never an option. Having now trained consistently and played competitive minutes at B team level, this opportunity with Rochdale has come at the perfect time.
“Nothing is as important as playing first-team football, and that’s something Jacob has a hunger to do. Rochdale have some big games between now and the end of their season with play-off ambitions in the National League, and we look forward to watching on to see how Jacob can contribute.”
— Sporting director Mark Cartwright, on Jacob Chapman’s loan move to Rochdale
“The initial process was an application for re-categorisation from Category 4 to Category 3, and that’s been an ongoing process throughout the year.
“We’ve been audited and just recently had our audit report, which is extremely successful and extremely positive, so it’s put us in an excellent position moving forward.
“We’re expecting hopefully to have some confirmation around May time, subject to approval from the [governing body] board. We’re really looking forward to it and it’s really exciting what a fantastic project we’ve got to look forward to designing and implementing.
“We’re obviously at the early stages of that and hopefully we can be more expansive on that and the ideas we have in the summer publicly - but there’s lots of hard work going on in the background from my staff currently.”
— Academy manager Jon Worthington gives an update on the club’s academy expansion
Huddersfield Town Women
Town Women have played twice since our last digest, suffering a 2-1 defeat away to Nottingham Forest after Yasmin Mason’s second-half strike proved to be in vain as Town tried to battle back from two goals down.
The Terriers then drew 1-1 at home to Liverpool Feds after Layla Proctor’s first-half header was cancelled out by a penalty for the visitors after the break.
Town now sit eight points away from safety with two games in hand ahead of a high-stakes local derby against Halifax this evening. Kick-off is at 7:45pm at the Stafflex Arena, so get down and get behind them. Tickets are £6 for adults, £4 for concessions, and free for under-16s.
Our schedule
We will have a Q&A podcast out for our paying backers on Thursday, so get signed up now if you aren’t already to get access.
We will then have the usual matchday coverage of the Coventry and Stoke games, with player ratings available to all readers on the final whistle followed by five conclusions either that evening or the next day.
I’ll also have another written piece for you over the weekend with further reaction to the Coventry game and where it leaves Town in their survival fight.
With Town playing on Monday, next week’s edition of the digest will be with you on Tuesday.