Match day thread: Huddersfield 25th Oct 25

I mentioned a long way up the thread how, prior to the game, the Hudds fans were complaining about being a weak side with no real guts, playing ineffectual football with too much arsing about at the back, led by a head coach with no real managerial experience but a ton of idealism.

And now they’ve posted this:

Where they are holding us up as a benchmark for pragmatism…how times change.

A few key excerpts for those of a TL;DR persuasion:

“…they were big and physical and bullied us completely. That keeps happening.

We’re most managers wet dream of a team to play against at this level. We think we’re technically good enough to play out from the back and we’re not, which makes any game plan easy.

Press and wait for the mistake. We’re physically weak. We’re mentally weak. We have no pace in the side.

We have no height and physical presence up front. The managerial appointment has been terrible and needs to go immediately, but outside of that, we just haven’t recalibrated to suit this division at all.

(What is needed at this level is) size, it’s playing in the right area, its having pace and power, its getting balls in the box, winning 2nd balls.

We don’t have the profile of player to do any of those things.

We don’t have an experienced lower league manager who knows the score.

This club is all empty ego, it’s a polished stadium, it’s polished social media content, it’s ‘progressive’ managerial appointments and playing in the ‘right way’.

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Crikey. Nosebleed time.

I was just gazumped by @PBo. But you’ll all know what I was referring to.

After an extended lie in to let yesterday’s events sink in, that was a very pleasing performance. Even accounting for circumstances going our way (Huddersfield losing by far their best and most influential player to a moment of sheer lunacy, and then losing arguably their second best player to injury not long afterwards), we adapted well and really made our numerical advantage count.

We also looked a lot more resilient mentally today. We were second best for a lot of the first 25 minutes but held the line well. We really came out of our shell after the red card, though the ability for us to work out and stick to a game plan to take advantage of that in key phases of play is what allowed us to seize control of the game. Huddersfield didn’t have an answer to it, and seemed resigned to their fate rather than show signs of being the proverbial wounded animal.

Off the pitch, I was pretty bemused by the atmosphere - we were knocking the ball around fairly well once we established control of the game, though at least the crowd around me on the terrace behind the goal stood in bored silence as if they’d been dragged along to a distant cousin’s christening. I don’t know whether 7 months of Doddsball has left deep scars on our collective psyche, but the amount of actual support and encouragement of good play was pretty shocking to be honest. I’m well past the age of moaning about everyone else not joining in with chants as much as Superfans­™­ like me, but at the very least give the team a clap now and then.

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They’re going through a very similar experience to the one we suffered. They were very poor and on another day we would have doubled our score.

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To be honest, when this season started with Mike Dodds, could you have said the exact same about us?

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Yes.

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@petef1 im also in NY next week. I would love to make it two chairboys in attendance, could you tell me the name of the bar please.

Everything’s been pretty much covered by others in this thread but that result feels like a turning point. Michael Duff knows what he’s doing. Everyone can see it. More importantly, the players believe it. They’re getting better, individually and collectively. Looking forward to the next couple of months and seeing how much progress this team can make under Duff.

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Duff is 100% a proper manager not at all like the previous clown. Being super relaxed and not outcome focussed did it for me with Dodds. What a cock up appointing Dodds.

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I remember when someone gave Doddsy the back handled compliment that he very rarely loses by more than 1 goal! As if that was the best positive we could find.

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For me the Wigan league game was a turning point. Good to see they all come around in the end!

Football fans in general seem a lot more toxic and negative to me. I blame social media & phone addiction, it’s really similar to the effect social media has had on politics.

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What are “they” all coming around to?

By this bit: “Joe Low’s return to Adams Park certainly wasn’t a warm one, with the Welsh defender leaving Wycombe after rejecting a new contract in search of a Championship move, instead opting for a move to Huddersfield Town.”

Does this mean just that J-Low had a poor day because his team fared badly, or did he actually get a crap reception from our fans?

We have a pretty poor record of booing ex-players who were actually very good for us, I’m hoping that’s not true here but you never know.

Where I was at, Literally everyone in the terrace was booing Joe Low

That this team is progressing!

Where I was at, Literally everyone in the terrace was booing Joe Low

Ah. Thanks for the reply.

That’s really disappointing though, I don’t know what the lad was supposed to do if he was barely getting a look-in for us under Dodds.

He’s easily good enough for first-team football, though I was a big fan of Bradley, who displaced him.

Low decided to leave before Dodds arrived.

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There didn’t seem to be any animosity with the players (who were with us last season) and Low yesterday. Lots of friendly chats with Grimmer, Fred and Leahy during breaks in play and hugs after the match. I thought it was nice that Low waited around on the half way line after the game and applauded both the family stand and the terrace and got a decent round of applause as well.

The reaction from the players is probably testament to the fact that they didn’t blame him for leaving Dodds’ sinking :ship:

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