After narrowly avoiding relegation last season, Huddersfield have revamped their forward line on a tight budget in an attempt to climb the Championship ladder this term.

Overview

It’s easy to forget, given the passage of time and the respective situations the two clubs now find themselves in, but when QPR met Huddersfield at Loftus Road on the opening day of the 1999/00 season it was the Terriers who were seen as the big spending favourites and Rangers who were the cash-strapped under dogs.

Town, managed by Steve Bruce, had spent £1m on Greek winger George Donis from Sheffield United and £750,000 on Bury centre back Chris Lucketti and Leeds striker Clyde Wijnhard. Kenny Irons cost £500,000 from Tranmere and by the end of September they’d brought in nine new faces, including Dean Gorre from Ajax, for just under £4m. QPR meanwhile, bossed by Gerry Francis, were just 18 months away from a spell in administration and had been shopping at Aylesbury for Jermaine Darlington and Saffron Walden Town for Stuart Wardley. Persuading Bardford to make Rob Steiner’s loan move permanent for a colossal £50,000 seemed like a treat for the weekend.

Rangers actually won 3-1 that day, Darlington scoring a spectacular first, and they’ll be hoping there’s no repeat of the underdog success this weekend now the boot is firmly on the other foot.

As if 2012/13 wasn’t dire enough for the supporters of Queens Park Rangers with just four league wins in the whole season to cheer, they had to put up with the national media throwing around the phrase “the next Portsmouth” as relegation drew near. The comparison is fair enough because, like Pompey, QPR threw big money at lots of stellar names to try and sustain a Premier League place despite playing in an old fashioned ground with a tiny capacity. But then QPR’s owners are far wealthier and more above board than any of the chancers Pompey had in their boardroom. Only time will tell if the R’s do go the way of Harry Redknapp’s previous club — given that Pompey opened their League Two campaign with a 4-1 home defeat by Oxford at the weekend where a goal from Patrick Agyemang was the only bright spot one can only hope we don’t.

For now though the rhetoric has changed. We’re no longer expecting a meltdown at QPR anyday, and in fact the club is now being touted as one of the richest in the division. Rangers snared Charlie Austin last week and the CEO at his previous club Burnley was quick to point to the large Premier League parachute payments when he said the R’s had simply blown Burnley’s offer to the player out of the water.

The new television deal in the Premier League, and the increased parachute payments associated with it, have come at a time when the Championship clubs are having their spending reigned in by stringent financial fair play rules. The newly relegated clubs seem to be at a bigger advantage than ever, as Huddersfield know only too well having seen star striker Jordan Rhodes leave for Blackburn a year ago for a transfer fee about the size of their overall playing budget and who knows what besides in wages. All three Huddersfield fans we spoke to for this article (answers to follow) mentioned parachute payments as a key factor in their predictions for the season.

LFW had, typically, backed Huddersfield as a promotion contender from this league last season. Newly promoted from League One they may have been but they’d taken their time achieving that, and when a side has spent a few seasons building and preparing for a promotion rather than winning it by accident through the play offs by putting a late spurt on I often think they’re a good bet to go sailing straight through the league above — Southampton being a prime example.

An early run of wins against the likes of Burnley, Blackpool and Wolves looked like this was a rare good tip from this website, but the form collapsed over the winter with just two wins from 16 league games and they rarely looked like escaping the relegation dog fight after that. Simon Grayson, who’d achieved the promotion, was replaced by Mark Robins who has done good work on tiny budgets previously at Rotherham, Barnsley and Coventry. They played the loan market well, with Jermaine Beckford and James Vaughan added to the attack and providing crucial goals. They won three and drew one of their last five games which was enough to stay in the division. Their final total of 57 points would usually be good enough for a safe midtable finish but in last season’s bizarre Championship division it still meant they were in danger on the final day of the season.

Robins clearly felt that goals were a problem. The club had come to rely on Rhodes too heavily and were always likely to struggle with the likes of Alan Lee and Lee Novak left to carry the fight after his departure. The permanent signing of Vaughan, who likes to fight and argue in equal measure, could be crucial if his injury problems are behind him but losing Lee and Novak and bringing in Martin Paterson from Burnley and returning hometown boy Jon Stead from Bristol City for nothing looks like shrewd business. Adam Hammill, who many QPR fans would like to have signed from Barnsley a couple of years ago prior to an ill-fated spell at Wolves, didn’t impress on loan last season but has signed permanently and Robins extracted the best form of his career when the pair were together at Oakwell. If right back Jack Hunt — pacy and quick on the attack in the modern style — can rediscover his form from the promotion season that looks like enough attacking threat to see Huddersfield just about safe.

Mind you, having tipped them for promotion last season and Swansea to finish bottom of the Premier League, me saying that probably gives them reason to be very concerned indeed.

Interview

Given that LFW hasn’t seen Huddersfield play since January we’ve dispensed with a scout report this week and gone for an extended interview section instead. Charlie Johnson from 90 Second Football offered his input in return for ours (which you can read here) while David Siddall and John Schofield came to us through LFW’s official photographer (unsalaried position) Neil Dejyothin. We thank all three for their input.

Huddersfield (LFW's tip for a promotion push I must admit) had a near miss with relegation last season and a change of manager midway through. Given that you seemed to have built so well for so long prior to the promotion, what happened to that momentum last season? Where did last term go wrong?

Charlie: We had been aiming to get into the Championship for a number of years, but in terms of preparation we gained promotion a year too late. Our best players had left or were going to leave us, so we had to buy a lot of new ones before the kick-off last August. At the start of last season we set out with an intensity that we were unable to maintain during the rest of the campaign, so we shocked everyone with how well we started before fitness issues and a real lack of quality caught up with us. Without a good start we would've been relegated and fortunately we changed managers at precisely the right time, as Mark Robins brought a much needed tenacity to the team. It took until a dramatic last day to finally secure our league status, in a game with drama that we'll struggle to match in many decades.

David: If you said at the beginning of last season we would be on 57 points going into the last game of the season most Town fans would have bitten your hand off, but we only survived on the last day. We started and finished the season well, but the collapse we suffered from November till February/March really had a few of us worrying. There were a few factors as to why we slumped badly particularly in the middle of the season — the main problem was we did not really have the squad depth to be able to sustain our early season form but I think most Town fans knew that. We were on the end of a few hidings in January and February - Leicester, Watford and Forest spring to mind — and the players’ confidence appeared to vanish which meant when we conceded where we would often concede two or three in quick succession. Jermaine Beckford missed large parts of the season his return towards the end coincided with our upturn in form towards the end of the season most notably his goals at home to Millwall and away to Wolves played a large part in our survival. James Vaughan was brilliant but he lacked service and support from the midfield which I think was the main area we struggled in. We lost Keith Southern who was our ball winner and Oliver Norwood was out of form and we did not have the depth in the squad of replace them.

John: There was a lot of reasons why it went wrong. I think one of the major reasons was the timing of fixtures. We had a relatively easy start with the wins at Blackpool and home to Wolves looking like very good results. But one team we just finished behind and the other were relegated. We then hit a run of fixtures that knocked us for six (sometimes literally, hello Leicester) and Grayson just didn’t seem to know what to do to turn it around and the rot set in. The bad spell also started when we lost both Vaughan and Beckford to injury, which meant we had to rely on Alan Lee and Lee Novak (plus a disaster of a loan spell for Simon Church). Grayson went then Robins had an easier run of fixtures at the end of the season so we picked up the points needed to stay up. Overall I was pretty happy with the season especially after losing Rhodes.

We also didn’t have the squad to compete, the first eleven you could say were Championship standard but the players in reserve were just not good enough, they were league one players who we are slowly shifting on. Overall we achieved what we needed to do and stay in the division.

What changes have been made this summer to avoid another season of struggle? Who have you signed and who has left? What do you make of the business done so far?

John: The biggest problem we faced was having no strikers left with James Vaughan and Jermaine Beckford returning to Norwich and Leicester respectively, Alan Lee not getting a new deal and Lee Novak not accepting our contract offer (although I wasn’t sorry to see the back of him). We made James Vaughan our number one target and we got our man. The fans love him and he seems to really love the club as well, so he’s just a perfect fit really. Jon Stead has returned which is a step up from Alan Lee, then Martin Paterson on a free from Burnley is a great bit of business and a big improvement on Lee Novak.

What is looking like a very good move is signing Jon Hogg from Watford, we have ended up with a similar set of centre midfielders at the club and Hogg looks like the type of player who will offer protection to the back four (which was a big problem last season). We also brought in Adam Hammill from Wolves as we didn’t have a right sided winger, although he didn’t have the best of loan spells. But the best form of his career was under Robins at Barnsley so hopefully he can get a bit more out of him.

There is also a couple of younger players in Daniel Carr from Dulwich Hamlets who is a striker and Jake Carroll from St Patrick Athletic who is a left back who can also play midfield, but I expect them to play more for the U21’s but will get the odd chance.

We need to shift a couple on before signing somebody else (financial fair play the main reason) but there will be one more signing which most of our fans hope is a centre back (I’d prefer another striker personally) and then maybe a couple of loans as well.

We haven’t sold anybody yet but I expect a few to leave. Couple of the youngest have gone out on loan (Chris Atkinson to Tranmere and Lee SInnott to Bury). Then we released Alan Lee, Scott Arfield (now at Burnley), Lee Novak (as mentioned above has gone to Birmingham) and Tom Clarke (linked up with Grayson again at Preston). Plus the loan signings Neil Danns and Jermaine Beckford returning to Leicester.

David: I think the biggest changes have been on the training pitch; Mark Robins is trying to get us play it out from the back and pass it. In terms of personnel we have not added too much. We went into June with no strikers on the books but the homecoming of Jon Stead, Martin Paterson and most importantly securing James Vaughan on a permanent deal should be enough firepower to keep us up. The signing of midfielder Jonathan Hogg from Watford looks a shrewd bit of business by the club and am hopeful he can offer that protection to the back four and keep the ball play ticking along in the midfield. This will be a big year for a few players who underperformed last year, players such as Joel Lynch who can be as good as any centre half in this division if on form but last year tailed off dramatically and ultimately could not even make the bench. Our wingers of Adam Hammill (signed from Wolves), Danny Ward and Sean Scannell need to find a bit more consistency and provide a better final ball, they all showed glimpses of what good players they are but they need to produce on a more regular basis if we are to improve upon last year.

Charlie: We've brought in an entirely new forward line. We were short a few strikers anyway, and our first choice pairing last season were loanees, so we had to buy this summer. One of the loanees, James Vaughan, was a big fans favourite season so we were delighted to see him sign on a permanent basis. Martin Paterson, Cristian Lopez and returning hero Jon Stead are all competent strikers who'll work hard but are unlikely to add twenty-five goals a season. So it's reasonable business on the striking front. Perhaps the best signing so far is Jonathan Hogg from Watford. A combative midfielder with energy to burn, should shield a defence that we've yet to strengthen.

We didn't lose too many players over the summer, certainly no players we were are considerably weaker for letting go. Alan Lee would have a good fifteen minutes a season, and was a popular figure in the dressing room, but you would've been hard pressed to find many fans who could put together a strong argument to keep him.

What do you make of Mark Robins as manager? Will he be a success and how has he done so far?

Charlie: In truth I was underwhelmed when I first saw him linked with the post, as he's quite a nondescript character, but after a bit of research I was impressed by his track record. He achieved his first objective of keeping us in the division and I expect him to make a success of his time at the John Smith's. It's been clear from his time at the club that he is tactically astute and isn't afraid to change things quickly if it's going wrong. It's a little early to see what sort of style he'll be enforcing, but early signs this year suggests he wants us to play a passing game and build from deep.

John: I’m reserving full judgement on Mark Robins but I’ve been impressed with what he has done so far. He tightened us up last season and has plans to get us to play from the back this season. No current evidence I expect him to be a lot more successful than the last two managers as he comes across as a lot more intelligent and when he finally shapes the squad to how he wants it then we should kick on.

David: Last season was all about survival when Robins took over and in that respect he succeeded. He made us a lot more solid (excluding Forest and Brighton matches). He comes across as quite a measured man and has a clear idea of how he wants the team and club to succeed. He did a lot of work within the FA in regards the structure of the academies and U21 leagues and the club is very keen on creating a pathway for players to develop from the academy in to the first team, so hopefully some of this will yield results in the future. This appointment seemed a long term one but as with all managers only time will tell if he is a success.

Who are the players to watch and the weak links in the Huddersfield team?

David: Players to watch: James Vaughan, main striker 14 goals last season and if not for his injury record could still be a Premier League player; Jack Hunt, right back with great speed is an attacking threat from deep and had Zaha in his back pocket twice last season; Jonathan Hogg played 43 times for Watford last season and is ball winning midfielder who will provide protection for the back four.
Weakest links: central defence, although that may be slightly unfair as they were often left exposed by the midfield last season but still lack pace and maybe aren’t as comfortable on the ball as Robins would like as well as being prone to the odd lapse. We also had the lowest chance creation rate in the division last year and I do not really see that improving too much this year unless our wingers and playmakers such as Norwood improve their consistency this season.

Charlie: We are still a work in progress as a club, and we have very few stars. The aforementioned Vaughan does have a lot of quality and on his day is lethal. Hardworking, strong and an excellent header of the ball, he's a very popular player and he'll give your centre backs a long afternoon. In terms of weak links, the majority of our defenders are capable of doing something stupid so I'd expect you to score at least once.

John: James Vaughan is our main man and will lead the line against you. Adam Clayton on his day is our main creative threat in midfield, but he can be hit and miss. He is best described as a deep lying playmaker. Adam Hammill is also a threat but I expect him to start on the bench and come on later. Tricky winger and if he is in the right mood and can put in the balls for the forwards.

As we have changed our style of play to playing it from the back the weak links are our centre halves, in particular Peter Clarke. They aren’t that comfortable on the ball so if your forwards press them then you could be nicking the ball of them. I expect us to keep it tight against you so hopefully they won’t get exposed too much. We are still a work in progress and too many players switched for the Forest goal and we don’t deal with pace very well. Jack Hunt also has had a couple of bad games so if he starts at right back then it will be worth attacking him there.

Who are your promotion and relegation tips in the Championship this season and how do you think Huddersfield will do?

John: Promotion wise I expect you and Wigan to get automatic promotion as looking at your team and theirs on paper shows the difference between the Premier League and Championship. Then I expect Forest, Reading, Brighton, Watford and Leicester to up around the play offs. Relegation wise I can’t see Yeovil staying up and then a few others will struggle, Barnsley, Bournemouth, Doncaster, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham and Blackpool, so two of those I expect to go down.

Lower mid-table is what I think we will be looking at, just hope we are safe a few weeks before the end of the season. We don’t have a lot of money compared to the rest of the league and the parachute payments make it even worst for us. Plus not having got back the shares in the stadium yet (it would be great if you guys didn’t buy anything from the food stands in the stadium as this is part of the fans protest) means we lose income from a lot of streams that most clubs get. The biggest problem in this league is the parachute payments and the sale of Rhodes last season summed it up. They trebled his wages and paid a fee that was about the total money we spent on our entire playing budget. But who knows, with Crystal Palace getting promotion last season anything can happen.

Charlie: I'd expect any of the relegated sides to do well, and it wouldn't surprise me if Leicester finally got it right this time around. As dark horses, I'd say Derby County are worth a look. Nigel Clough has slowly built an excellent young side, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them in and around the play offs. I expect Millwall and Barnsley to struggle, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if Yeovil did well this season, despite them looking clear favourites to go down. As for Huddersfield, I'd expect us to be around 15th this time around as we gradually establish ourselves in the division.

David: Promotion - Wigan, Watford and QPR. Relegation- Yeovil, Doncaster, Blackpool (if they lose Tom Ince). Huddersfield I think will finish around 18th if we can get the same number of points as last year (58) I think we will avoid the last day dramas

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