Brentford v Huddersfield Town - Carlos Corberan brings Marcelo Bielsa’s ‘murderball’ to Terriers

Juninho Bacuna grinned when asked over Zoom if he dreaded or looked forward to the training-ground exercise Marcelo Bielsa made infamous at Leeds United, a frantic, non-stop 11-aside game with coaches screaming instructions and ensuring the ball is never out of play for more than a second or two.

“Both,” the midfielder replied.

“That’s something different this season. We play 11-v-11 high intensity with no moments you can rest, you just have to go to your limit every time. It will only make you fitter for the weekend.

“For 90 minutes (in competitive matches) everything is high intensity, I’m helping the attack and the defence, trying to be a leader for the team and hopefully scoring goals.

“We had the same identity with the Cowleys so it’s not really new for us as a team but the intensity is a little bit higher.”

Corberan was an assistant of Bielsa’s at Leeds before taking the top job at Huddersfield, who travel to Brentford this afternoon.

Like Bielsa, Corberan has an aversion to the habit some managers have of accumulating as many centre-forwards as possible. Last season Leeds made do with Patrick Bamford, loanees Eddie Nketiah and Jean-Kevin Augustin for half a season each, and midfielder Tyler Roberts as a fall-back.

Danny Ward’s hamstring injury is therefore unlikely to mean any panic-buying with fellow striker Fraizer Campbell back in training, even if neither probably has Bamford’s robustness.

“We don’t want to make a decision after an injury over a short period of time,” said Corberan. “We are going to have to see if we need to increase the number of strikers or if we have other players who can play as a striker as their second position. If we add players we want to make sure they can strengthen the squad.

“At the beginning of the season we started with the idea to have Danny Ward and Fraizer Campbell as the strikers. Now Fraizer Campbell has come back into the group (after injury) and had a week’s training with the group, which is very positive.

“We’ll see if we have a player who can play as a second striker to cover this.

“We need to be able to react to any scenario because injuries are part of the game. We need to adapt and find a solution like we did in the last game.”

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James Mitchinson