Huddersfield Town chief Andre Breitenreiter pledges to 'tell the truth' about extent of player problems in key meeting and makes shock revelation

Town were effectively relegated from the Championship last weekend and finish the season at promotion-chasing Ipswich Town on Saturday.

After that, the German will meet with the club’s board for talks regarding his own situation alongside a debrief into the failings he has witnessed a fraught season for the club.

Asked about his future in the pre-match press conference, he said: “I cannot tell you as first of all, we have to hold the conversations and it’s my responsibility to tell the truth.

"I am not here for a long time and have to be careful because of (potentially) losing my job. But I want to have success everywhere, so I have to be responsible.

"I appreciate the conversations of all the people around the club, the owner, the sporting director and the CEO where we really work closely with each other.

"They told me about the problems when I signed.

"It needs many, many changes, especially to change the culture. This club with fantastic fans and people around it are so respectful and I really appreciate them and they deserve honest people on the pitch and outside of the pitch and you have to find right people for Huddersfield Town.”

Breitenretier delivered a damning assessment of the attitude of some unnamed players for their part in the club’s relegation following last weekend’s draw with Birmingham City.

Afterwards, he revealed his unhappiness with certain players, some of whom ‘left early’ in his words following the draw with Blues and said he had experienced ‘unacceptable’ things in his time at the club which he hadn’t witnessed in 30 years in football.

On Thursday, Breitenreiter went onto reveal that had he known about the extent of the problems back in February, he probably wouldn’t have taken on the challenge in the first place.

He added: “When I decided for Huddersfield for this idea, you can be sure if I had known about all the things and problems in the team, maybe I would have decided another way.

"But because of the conversations with the owner, Mark Cartwright and Jake Edwards and also with my connections with Huddersfield, (I did).

"I spoke yesterday with Elias Kachunga and for me there was a special connection so I took the high risk to go to a second-league team at the bottom of the table 100 per cent.

"It was the right decision for me, but I hadn’t expected that the problems were so big in the team. So now we have to finish the season as good as possible and speak openly with those responsible about many things.”

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Asked to further elaborate on the issues he had to contend with, the 50-year-old said: “It’s clear Town need a reset start, for sure. Many things need to change.

"You need a culture and identity on and off the pitch, from the bottom to the top. We will have conversations and see what happens in the future.

"We spoke about the things many many times. It’s clear that you don’t (usually) experience all these problems as no manager would sign.

"You have to tell all the failings. I know about the fitness problem and heard about a really poor pre-season where the team trained once per day and the focus was on playing golf and maybe staying in the pub and this never leads to success. They did not train enough to play over ninety minutes. This is what I heard about from many, many people around the club and players.

"It’s good to enjoy days off, but when you want to enjoy success, it needs more than that.

"There were many problems in the team. They (many) don’t accept each other and I couldn’t handle it.

"When I think about my mistakes, I am also not responsible for everything. Maybe with the knowledge from today, I'd have taken decisions clearer. Maybe I was too calm for a long time as it normally leads to success.

"But there was not one group and that was the biggest problem.”