[jjamez]

Here lies Huddersfield Town, thrice champions of England, the club that made Herbert Chapman, Bill Shankly, Dennis Law and Mark Fotheringham what they were in the footballing world. Proud parent of FA Cup medals and one of the worst defensive records in the top four divisions over the last however many years. They finally succumbed to the might of a footballing goliath.



Obituary aside, this week has been surprisingly positive for the club, forget the new years day pounding at Leicester, we won't be the first to suffer that fate, nor the last and the positive aspect of it all was we apparently didn't roll over and die unlike normal. Then came our first foray into the transfer market, the loan signing of Alex Matos from Chelsea. The 19 year old signed for the pensioners in the summer after leaving David Wagner's Norwich. At the Canaries he was viewed as a winger and as such was used there in the u21 squad, never making his debut for the first team. Upon joining Chelsea he found himself in the u21's yet again, but this time he featured out of position in the center of midfield operating in a slightly more dynamic role. Having impressed the set up at the Blues, Matos found himself promoted to the bench of the first team, making the solitary appearance for the side, coming on as a stoppage time sub in their 2-0 victory away at Fulham. Now converted to a midfielder, Matos has been compared to and identified as the long term replacement to Ngolo Kante who left for Saudi money in the summer. This will be his first real taste of professional football, but it could be promising if he turns out to be more Emile Smith-Rowe and Levi Colwill rather than Luke Mbete.



Then came our second foray into the market as we Finnish-ed the week off with the signing of Bojan Radulovic from Finnish Premier League champions HJK (thats easy to find on a keyboard). The Spanish born Serb has had a fairly adventurous career to date. He began as a youth product with Lleida in Spain before having a successful trial with Brighton, earning a deal to play in their age group sides. Whilst at Brighton Bojan had loan spells back in Spain with the likes of Espanyol B and Alaves B, where his combined 14 appearances yielded just the 1 goal. He departed Brighton having not played for the first team, to move to Swedish side AIK in 2020, here managed to get more games under his belt, but in a two year period, the big Serb only managed 3 goals in 29 appearances and finished his time there out on loan at HJK. His loan spell in Finland saw him score 5 goals in 15 appearances and was enough to convince the side to pay £150k for his services. He rewarded them finishing last season as the leagues top scorer, scoring 18 in 24 with a further 6 goals in 13 European appearances including goals against current Greek Super League leaders PAOK. Unlike Matos, he may be unavailable to feature in the game against Man City due to not having international clearance.



The final positive, is that Mr Nagel has tweeted or posted on X or whatever it is you do now, that further squad improvements are on their way, some thought he meant last night, but I think he's meaning this window, now personally i'd like a left footed center half, maybe a touch pacier than Helik and Lees just to offer more support for them and more in game cover like Colwill offered to Lees and Pearson. I'd also like a versatile forward with a bit of pace, whilst some might say we have that in Koroma and Burgzorg, I think maybe having one that offers something a little bit different would be a good option, as we know, in this sport and others, pace causes issues. Finally, depending on what sort of system Moore elects to use when he has got new players, another striker wouldn't go amiss, again someone that offers something a bit different, whether that be an out and out target man ala Grant Holt (so you're looking at the likes of Keiffer Moore there) or a work horse striker who scores in the mold of say a Dion Charles of Bolton. I'm not sure if someone like Macauly Langstaff or Ali Al-Hamdi (Afc Wimbledon guy) are viable for our situation or system, but i may be wrong.

Anyway, onto tomorrow and the little task of Manchester City who stand in our way of a cup run. This will be the 81st meeting between the two clubs with Town not having the best of records in the fixtures between the two sides. Town have won 22, lost 28 and drawn 30 of the fixtures that have been contested. The first was back in 1920 when Town lost 1-0 down Leeds Road, and then proceeded to lose 3-2 a week later over in Manchester. The first win came on boxing day in 1921 thanks to a 2-0 home win. 5 years would pass until our next victory. The two sides would meet regularly over the decades and even included the famous 10-1 defeat over at Maine Road, former owner Phil Hodgkinson was there or so he said, but then again he was playing squash at the time so may not have been, but we do know that Mr Nagel is set to be there for tomorrows game, whatever the result. The last time town beat Man City was way back in 1999, at the end of that season it would be a further 17 years until the two sides would meet. In the elapsing time, Town would crumble to the verge of collapse and fall into the depths of division 3 and rebuild their way up. Manchester City would find their club purchased by a Sheik, leading to masses of millions being spent on stellar quality like Yaya Toure, Kevin De Bruyne, Erling Haaland and Jack Rodwell. Town would welcome this new stellar powerhouse to the John Smiths Stadium as the sides played out a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup, with David Wagner's side seeing a Phil Billing goal chalked off. The replay saw Town take a surprise lead through Harry Bunn, but that just poked the beast as they beat a Town second string side 5-1. Upon reaching the Premier League, Town managed to get one draw in the 4 meetings between the two sides, that coming after we had secured survival and they had secured the league, we even could have won it had calamity Malone made the right choice. The previous game saw town take the lead through an own goal, but two second half goals saw Man City come from behind, Rajiv Van La Parra also saw red at the end of the game. The next season, we began the campaign at the Etihad, and began with a 6-1 defeat with keeper Ben Hamer acting as no more than a dummy in goal, then again there were a further 10 of those infront of him. The return fixture saw town lose 3-0 as Mark Hudson couldn't lead the side to stop the rot.



In regards to team news, Town will be without Chris Maxwell, Delano Burgzorg, Kian Harratt, Yuta Nakayama, Josh Ruffles, plus many more, which sees Darren Moore have very little options in way of what to put out. It could be that we see a few youngsters thrown in just to merely protect some of the more senior players that have featured over all the festive period. We may also get to see the comedy factor of Man Cities defence having to stand against Kyle Hudlin, which is all that will happen, I'm not expecting much to happen in an attacking sense.

As for Man City, it is expected that Haaland and Bernardo Silva will miss out through injury, but De Bruyne could be given some minutes as he progresses with his return from injury. Argentine Julian Alvarez will be expected to lead the line with the likes of fringe player Kalvin Phillips likely to feature. It could also see Pep throw a few young players into the squad to reward performances in training. It might be prudent to watch these players as Town fans as there could be one of them joining us in the not too distant future on loan.



Their summer window makes me want to cry, so i'm going to keep it brief. They spent £90 million, yes 90, on a centre half in the shape of Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig, and a further £150 million on Nunes from Wolves, Kovacic from Chelsea and Doku from Star Wars Stade Rennais. Meanwhile, they sold Cole Palmer to Chelsea for a meagre £47 million whilst Mahrez and Laporte both went to Saudi for just over £50 million. We could but just dream of that sort of money being spent here. Then again, we would probably just waste it as we've seen when we got promoted to the Premier League.



Not doing a played for both, I can't think of that many past Aaron Mooy, Luke Mbete and Harry Bunn, oh wait the magnificent Donal McDermott, so we can just jump straight into the anagrams


1) misdated hault
2) poolside jaguar
3) Binky revenues
4) Amory oona
5) sneezy titch

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one jjamez

Knowing us, we probably won't have international clearance for Bojan before next week, never mind this weekend. Nobody else ever gets these problems. We even have trouble with Welsh signings.

Anyway, never mind resting players. None of them deserve a rest and we've no midweek game, so there out to be few changes to the line up.

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4) Aaron Mooy

[Amelia Chaffinch]

1) Etihad Stadium

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2) Josep Guardiola?

[ritchiebaby]

Without wanting to tax my brain too much, I assume Kevin De Bruyne is No3 and that S is next to D on the keyboard.

[Lord Snooty]

He's gone for a strong line up. Got to fancy us now.

Haven't seen theirs line up yet though. 

[theo_luddite]

Nice one jjamez. I'm of out for Sunday Lunch (as opposed to just being out for lunch) so I won't be tuning in today.
No doubt I will have no effect on the final result what-so-ever.

[Lord Snooty]

No idea who most of City's line up are. Only heard of that Grealish lad.

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And Foden, obviously.

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Championship side Huddersfield hand a debut to midfielder Alex Matos, who has joined on loan from Chelsea.

Striker Bojan Radulovic, who joined from Finnish champions HJK Helsinki last week, is on the bench.

Huddersfield XI: Nicholls, Spencer, Helik, Lees, Jackson, Edmonds-Green, Wiles, Matos, Rudoni, Koroma, Thomas.

Subs: Radulovic, Diarra, Edwards, Hudlin, Austerfield, Ayina, Lorpenda, Bellagambi, Stone

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Kevin de Bruyne is once again on the bench for Manchester City as boss Pep Guardiola makes five changes for the visit of Huddersfield.

Stefan Ortega, Ruben Dias, Sergio Gomez, Rico Lewis and Oscar Bobb all come in.

Jeremy Doku is also on the bench but Erling Haaland is not included in the squad.

Man City XI: Ortega, Akanji, Dias, Gvardiol, Gomez, Lewis, Kovacic, Bobb, Foden, Grealish, Alvarez.

Subs: Ederson, Walker, Ake, Doku, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Nunes, Wright, Hamilton

[Lord Snooty]

Get some strikers on. This is rubbish.

[ritchiebaby]

Clueless as far as retaining possession is concerned, but pretty good defending from the whole team. First goal was because of the break of the ball in our box and the second was just a sclaff at the ball, could have been anybody's.

The first 30 minutes showed City with 80% possession, but that's OK because most of that was sideways or backwards. More one-way traffic to come, methinks.

[Lord Snooty]

Just Thomas up front is no good. Get him some support. This is crap, Moore.