Huddersfield Town players must find desire from within to escape Championship relegation, says Andre Breitenreiter

Displaying the mentality and discipline to follow those orders once the action gets under way constitutes something else. Then, it is down to the players.

In that regard, Town erred badly at the worst possible moment in last Saturday’s heavy defeat to Swansea City, a hugely damaging result from a psychological perspective and quite possibly the telling blow of a grim 2023-24 campaign.

The hosts imploded late on en route to a shambolic 4-0 reverse at the John Smith's Stadium.

Huddersfield do have one ‘final chance’ of sorts at home to Birmingham City this coming weekend where they must pick up three points to take their fate to the final weekend.

To do that, their mentality has to be vastly improved from last weekend and they must show the ‘will’ as Breitenreiter puts it, to stick to the game plan.

For the German, his big decision is getting his team selection right for this must-win fixture with Town fighting to avoid a return to League One for the first time since 2011-12.

Breitenreiter, whose second-from-bottom side have won just twice in his 11 outings in charge, said: “We had the quality against Millwall to defend as a team and wait for the chance to score and the quality against Bristol (City) and it would normally be a clean sheet (without the late penalty).

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“The boys have shown they can win games when they are together and stick to the plan and have the will. I cannot explain the will, it is a thing from inside. Then we have to find the right players for the situation now. Some characters maybe feel pressure, some others maybe don’t care because they are thinking of other clubs.

“You never know. I don’t feel this really, but it’s a normal thing when you know about players thinking about the future. It’s our job to find the right line-up.

“Saturday was the right line-up as they played well at Bristol and there’s no reason to change this and it was nearly the same (opponent) in style of play.”