Cardiff City v Huddersfield Town – Flexibility vital to Carlos Corberan and hopes of his Terriers

Fortunately, Christopher Schindler is expected to return from a concussion at Cardiff City this evening, making up for the absence of fellow centre-back Richard Stearman, who is expected to be out for “10 days to two weeks” with a hamstring tear.

If not, Corberan has no qualms about giving Rarmani Edmonds-Green only his second start for the club, nearly a year after his first.

But with Pipa not expected to return until Saturday’s visit of Queens Park Rangers, Juninho Bacuna could again be preferred to specialist Demeaco Duhaney at right-back, showing Corberan’s fondness for teaching old (and not so old) Terriers new tricks.

“Bacuna can adapt to different positions,” argues the Spaniard. “His more normal position is to play in the middle of the pitch as a No 10 (in the hole) or a No 8 (a deeper but still attacking central midfield role) but last season he was playing down the sides. We saw in pre-season we can use him to do this job.

“It’s always important to have players who can play different positions.

“Duhaney has more experience in this position, he is a more natural right-back, but Bacuna can attack down the middle or the sides so his skills can be adapted to this position and it’s always important to have this alternative. It depends on what we are expecting from the opponent who we decide to play with.”

With Huddersfield switching between three and four at the back this season, players need to be able to think on their feet.

“It was one of the targets we had when we came here to be able to adapt to many different shapes and different positions,” explains Corberan. “We started to work on that in the first training sessions. We worked with (left-back or wing-back Harry) Toffolo, for example, as a left centre-back.

“From the start we were trying to train with players in different positions, sometimes positions they played last season.

“Before we arrived here we were watching last season’s games (on DVD) and you see for example that Juninho Bacuna played different positions.

“Toffolo was playing as a left-back but we saw (Jaden) Brown can play as a left-winger or a left-back, we saw (Adama) Diakhaby and (Isaac) Mbenza can play on the left or the right, (Josh) Koroma for me was exactly the same but I could see with his skills he could also be a striker. We knew we only had two strikers (Fraizer Campbell and Danny Ward) and when one of them is not available we needed to look at who was going to be the second striker.

“We need to be prepared to solve the problems before they appear. That’s one of the targets we have as coaches.

“Football is always going to surprise you and you have to solve any unexpected situations. If we can avoid these type of situations it is better.

“With Covid and the number of consecutive games they are circumstances that make the adaptability of the team key to keeping the style and identity we want.”

Consistency is notoriously difficult at the best of times in the Championship, and bedding a new team in with a manic fixture list – not to mention Coronavirus – makes it even harder. Town have won five, lost six and drawn three league games.

“It’s one of the challenges we have right now to keep the stability in the team while making changes,” admits the coach. “When you have a lot of games it’s difficult to play with the same players so everyone has to be adaptable to make changes without (the team) suffering.

“When you are playing with different team-mates it’s not the same because sometimes you develop relationships more with certain players and we don’t have a lot of training sessions to do that because a lot of the time one group is in recovery and the other is preparing for the game.

“But we like all the players to have the same mentality and one of the keys for our success can be that if we change one player for another we can still play in a similar way.”

Edmonds-Green, a 21-year-old academy product, replaced Stearman from the bench in Saturday’s win over Middlesbrough and although it was his first Championship outing since a debut at right-back last December and a substitute’s appearance weeks later, Corberan insists he will have no problem using him if Schindler has not made a full recovery.

“I feel full of confidence (in him), that’s why he is in the squad,” added Corberan.

“Unfortunately he picked up an injury in pre-season and once he was ready to train again the medical staff said his body was not sufficiently adapted to the demands of the Championship but now he’s ready, he’s fit.”

Like Pipa, Alex Pritchard returned to training this week but will not be considered for selection until the weekend.

Goalkeeper Ben Hamer is ready to return, however, after self-isolation.

Last six games: Cardiff City WLDLWL; Huddersfield Town WDLDLW

Referee: K Friend (Leicester)

Last time: Cardiff City 2 Huddersfield Town 1, August 21, 2019, Championship.

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