Huddersfield Town digest: Injury latest as Nigel Lonwijk back, Herbie Kane out
Plus a predicted line-up and Michael Duff's thoughts ahead of facing Peterborough United on Saturday afternoon
What’s been said
— Michael Duff, on Huddersfield Town’s conflicting home and away records in 2025:
“Performances haven’t been brilliant at home and we know it’s an unwanted stat. We’re not stupid, we know we haven’t scored [at the John Smith’s Stadium] this year.
“ … We want to give the supporters a performance. The away supporters have been brilliant and have gone home happy, but I think supporters have been a little bit disappointed with the home results in this calendar year, as have we.
“I think it’s been a case of quality rather than effort, but we need to try and improve the quality and score a couple of goals.
“… People are turning up expecting us to win, and we haven’t won enough games, there’s no getting away from that. There’s no hiding from it. We need to be better at home, we need to win more games at home, and we need to score more goals.
“It’s being aware of it without trying to make it a thing. A lot of it is between the two ears. You can’t be a good player away from home and not a good player at home. It’s a mentality, and it’s dealing with different types of pressure and expectancy.”
— Michael Duff, on the challenge ahead against Peterborough:
“It’s a difficult game [this weekend]. They’re a difficult team because they’ve got some really good players. They’re really young, they’ve got a lot of pace in the team. They’re having a disappointing season, but they had a lot of key players taken out and they’re almost in a rebuild phase with an experienced manager. We know they offer a lot of threat.
“… It goes to show when there’s a lot of change at a football club, it’s difficult. We’re not trying to absolve ourselves of any criticism but Luton got relegated last season, look at where they are (bottom of the Championship). Rotherham are having a difficult season and they got relegated, look where they are (14th in League One). It happens. When there’s a lot of change at a football club it sometimes takes a little bit more time.
“[Peterborough] are in that rebuild phase now, they’ve got to try and survive this year, but then I’m sure they’ll kick on because their recruitment has always been good, they’ve always developed young players and sold them on. But we’re not too concerned about what their model is — we need to deliver a performance, score some goals, and win the game hopefully.”
Coming up next
Peterborough United will visit the John Smith’s Stadium for Saturday’s 3pm kick-off in poor form and hovering just two points and one position above the relegation places, albeit with a game in hand over 21st-placed Burton.
Darren Ferguson’s side have particularly struggled away from home: their draw away to Stevenage at the weekend was just the second point Peterborough have picked up in League One since last winning on the road back in August, some 13 games ago.
Peterborough’s problems are mostly defensive, with their 58 goals against the worst record in the division. They do however remain a goal threat, with their 47 goals scored better than all but five League One sides.
The Posh have nonetheless made it to the EFL Trophy semi-finals and will visit Wrexham in midweek hoping to make it to Wembley.
Huddersfield Town injuries and absences
Herbie Kane looks likely to miss most of the rest of the regular league season after suffering a posterior cruciate ligament tear against Barnsley at the weekend. The midfielder is expected to be out for eight weeks, which would run up until around the end of April.
Brodie Spencer will be unavailable against Peterborough as he serves the second half of his two-match ban for picking up ten yellow cards.
Nigel Lonwijk has been back in training and is hoped to be available this weekend after his hamstring injury.
Ruben Roosken will be out until late February-mid March with the knee injury he suffered at Northampton.
Joe Taylor continues to sit games out with his hamstring issue, with the club keen to avoid making the injury worse. The striker was forecast to be out for around a month when he was taken out of the side in late January.
Matty Pearson is expect to be out until around the beginning of April with a calf injury.
Mickel Miller is out till March-April with a knee injury, while Danny Ward and Rhys Healey are both ruled out for the season with knee injuries of their own.
Predicted line-up to face Peterborough
4-4-2: Lee Nicholls; Lasse Sorensen, Radinio Balker, Tom Lees, Josh Ruffels; Ben Wiles, David Kasumu, Jonathan Hogg, Tawanda Chirewa; Dion Charles, Josh Koroma.
Substitutes: Jacob Chapman, Nigel Lonwijk, Ollie Turton, Antony Evans, Joe Hodge, Freddie Ladapo, Callum Marshall.
Huddersfield Town Women
Town Women will host second-placed Middlesbrough in Sunday’s 2pm kick-off in what could be a make-or-break game in both sides’ campaigns.
Boro have gone undefeated in the league since a surprise loss at Doncaster Belles in November and sit just two points behind table-topping Cheadle Town Stingers.
Town are nine points away from the single promotion place but have a game in hand over the top three, and will be desperate to give themselves a chance of keeping the pressure on until the end of the season.
Our schedule
Arthur Difford will be covering both the men’s and women’s games for us this weekend.
Player ratings for both games will be available on the final whistles, with five conclusions on the Peterborough game set to be released first thing Sunday morning.
We’ll have the podcast for you as usual on Monday morning, though our format will be slightly different this time as David Hartrick is joined by Steven Chicken to discuss the Shrewsbury game before Arthur tags in to talk about Saturday’s game.