[jjamez]

Huddersfield Town Vs Hull City

     

Huddersfield Town play host to promotion chasing Hull City on Saturday, with Steve Bruce's side coming into the game on the back of a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Derby County. Bradley Johnson nabbed a brace with chris martin and craig bryson getting the other two. Hull also saw moses odabajo sent off for a last man foul and one would presume that he will be missing out of this weekends fixture, although they do have a little bit of quality in reserve.

However, before the international break their form was a bit of a mixed bag, with a 1-0 defeat to Middlesborough and a 1-1 draw at home to one of this seasons disaster clubs Nottingham Forest. But they do sit 4th still, with the slight issue being that they are 7 points behind second so one would presume that they may have to settle for a playoff berth and what they have to play for now is more a case who and where they play in the playoffs, not that it really matters.

Huddersfield on the other hand have had a poor return after the international break, losing 1-0 to Sheffield Wednesday and losing 3-0 away at boro which has seen Town slip a little bit closer to the drop zone than what fans may have hoped/wished/wanted strike where required. One thing to ease a bit of the worrying would be the fact that Mk Dons are 8 points behind and there are a few teams inbetween, but we still have to make ourselves mathematically safe and then maybe just maybe we can put a few of the younger players in that have performed well for the other sides and see how they fare.

(close enough for a piccy but not close enough to fall?)


Who Have They Got?


Their squad seems to be blessed in pretty much all areas, scottish keeper Alan McGregor is still number one but is being challenged by Jakupovic who performed well in the FACup away at Arsenal.

Their defensive players are also of a high quality, boasting the likes of Curtis Davies, Michael Dawson, the highly rated Harry Maguire and scottish full back Andrew Robertson. To me this will prove to be a tough nut to crack, although the likes of Dawson and Davies are getting on a bit now and have been prone to cock ups over their career, but even more so now when challenged with a bit of trickery and pace.

  

Their midfield also has some players that would effectively walk into many sides in this league and even some of the lower teams in the premiership. Former england international tom Huddlestone is amognst their ranks as is Alan Pardew's mate David Meyler, both of whom have been known to suffer with injuries, which arguably cost one of them a more stellar career.
It doesnt end there, they also have the likes of Robert Snodgrass who used to play in Scotland and for Norwich, tricky young winger Sam Clucas, as well as Jake Livermore, Ahmed Elmohammedy and Shaun Maloney. I am beginning to question how they are as low as 4th but with the ability these players have, they come with their own issues. Huddlestone and Meyler are both injury prone, Snodgrass is coming back still from a bad knee injury which kept him out for a large part of the season, Clucas is still learning and Livermore got banned for a drugs test as well as also having injury problems.

nice perm..      poor lad

Finally onto their attacking options, which is where they are let down really, a former Arsenal man in Chubba Akpom who is still adjusting in what is still the early days of his professional career, Sone Aluko who has struggled to make much of an impact this season, falling out of favour and nearly being punished for some reason and sent to leeds... however he does possess pace and power and if they use him against us he would still be a danger. another option for them would be leading scorer Abel Hernadez, who sometimes drops out of the side depending on how much game time he has played, he has 17 goals for the tigers this season and also comes with international pedigree, having played at world cups alongside the vampire himself Luis Suarez.





Played For Both

Well for a starter, their manager was once in our dugout, a long time ago, before walking out... any ideas? you got it its the man without a nose himself...
sorry... this one..   although LVG has his eye on someone...

Another that has played for both is the guy on the rights son, Alex. he came on loan from Leeds and didnt do anything good or bad that I can remember.  

Another loanee to have played for both was Kevin Kilbane, he signed for Lee Clark's Huddersfield Town side on loan from Hull, think it was the season where the players and the managers mind stayed back in Huddersfield instead of turning up at Old Trafford...


Another loanee town had from Hull was Liam Cooper, he didnt play much and looked like he was going to be a lower league player and in all fairness to him he lived up to that, playing well for Chesterfield in league's 1 and 2 before falling out with the manager and being carted off to Elland Road...

as for any more I cant really think of any recent ones, so i will leave any older ones to the more experienced Huddersfield Town fan...

Moving on to Saturday, I 'd imagine that Hull will turn up and be a typical Steve Bruce side in that they will come out and be solid at the back, but also have enough about them to be a problem at the other end of the pitch, something that we will have to be weary about. I think if Huddersfield want to geteot anything out of this game then something out of this list has to happen.
1- huddersfield remain solid at the back and keep their players at bay
2- hull's attacking players dont turn up
3- huddersfield's attacking players live up to their potential as a unit and make life really hard for Hulls back line
or 4- Hulls backline decide that they want to play like they did against derby... imagine Bruce's face if they did that

After their perfomance against Derby it is rather difficult to predict what they will line up like, but i'd imagine that their key players like Dawson, Hernadez and Mayler will all start. Their local journo has said that they need something radical in terms of change after tuesdays game, but i still dont see there being many changes.

As for us, I think we may see a fair few changes to the side that played middlesborough. Steer will keep his place in goal, smith will continue at right back whilst hudson and lynch will be at centre back barring injuries, the one defensive change will see Davidson drop out (of the squad hopefully) and Husband take his place in what will be his last game of his loan spell. it will be interesting to see how town take the left back berth once he has gone...

the midfield two will probably revert back to whitehead and billing, although Hogg is rumoured to be back training but Hull may be too soon.
The advanced trio is where it is anybodies guess, for me paterson should be playing the advanced central role, scannell on the right seeing as he will help smith out when robertson comes down the left, plus scanz could also force robertson to stay deeper which could be of benefit. that leaves the place on the left flank to be one of Rajiv, Lolley, bunn and Karim, i would go with Lolley out of those options.

that leaves nahki to take his place up top, although he came off early against boro but it could be nothing. if something is up then we may be in a bit of a pickle...bunn up top really?