Huddersfield Town will be looking to avoid a third successive defeat when they face Reading tomorrow
In order for Huddersfield Town to move past a dismal week and play Reading tomorrow afternoon, head coach Michael Duff has said that his team needs to “react better” to misfortune.
The Terriers enter the match at Select Car Leasing Stadium having recently lost their last two home games against Northampton Town and Blackpool.
Town had begun their League One campaign in positive fashion with four wins from their opening five matches, but suffered two setbacks on home soil to leave them on 12 points from seven games played.
Duff believes he has identified a crucial factor that has led to their recent defeats, but the head coach recognises the problem isn’t a quick fix.
Duff remarked, “We just haven’t handled adversity well.” I’ve taken a close look at the group from the beginning to the end. We played some excellent teams in the preseason, and we looked strong, well-organised, and well-formed. We began the season in the same way, but there wasn’t as much pressure as there was in the preseason.
“In all the other league games, we scored first. This week has exposed a weakness in which, although there is nearly a panic when something goes against the grain, we still need to investigate the cause. It’s probably a cultural issue rather than a lack of application, in my opinion of ‘oh no it’s going wrong again’, and they don’t know how to react in the proper way. That’s the thing that we need to react better.
Even though you will lose games 1-0, not start them correctly, and give up own goals, the response in the first two games has been the main focus, especially today. We’re attempting to find out more about the significant meeting we had with the players today.
“We need to change the losing mindset at the club, but it’s too simple to merely say that. “Oh, it’s just old battle scars from earlier years,” you say? Well, we need to address that. It’s simple to place the blame on the past; this is the present. That’s what we’ll endeavour to accomplish.
As everyone is aware, it won’t happen overnight. In football, you’re never going to go from night to day in such a short amount of time, so you simply have to chip away at that.
Duff tried to emphasise his team’s impressive start, which included wins at Peterborough United and Bolton Wanderers—two of the previous season’s eliminated play-off opponents—in spite of the team’s back-to-back losses.
“The first five games of the season, in every stat going we were in the top three or four – in possession, out of possession, xG for and against, set plays for and against,” Duff said. “It’s not the formation, it’s not the players, it’s definitely between the ears. It’s getting them to recognise that if we do take a punch on the nose, okay, reset and get back to that team, and react in a better way.
“Ultimately, it feels all doom and gloom and we’re fifth in the league. Are we happy with this week? Absolutely not. The performances need to be better and the reaction needs to be better, but it takes time to build that trust in each other, and – I hate saying it – to trust the process of ‘what has got you in all those top stats in the first five?’ It’s a really small window, but I go back to the pre-season games as well, we played some good games in pre-season.
“It’s that sort of pressure of ‘oh it’s all going wrong’, you don’t have that in pre-season. We went goals down in pre-season and we reacted really well, because there’s no real heat on, but when the big lights are on so to speak, that’s where we haven’t reacted properly, and that’s where the mentality needs to be better.”
