Huddersfield Town v Blackpool: Michael Duff and Tom Lees on 'Yorkshire trait' relegated trio must fight against

When Huddersfield Town host Steve Bruce's Blackpool in League One on Tuesday, Duff will be anxious to see a very different performance from the one he and the John Smith's Stadium witnessed against Northampton Town on Saturday.

At its most basic, he is looking for his team to run more having not seen enough of that in the 3-1 defeat.

But there was also a sense of mental fragility – of a calamitous own goal by Michal Helik rolling into a missed open goal from Josh Koroma, then a missed penalty by the striker – who, in his defence, did find the net for the fifth time this season.

How much was down to what was between the ears, Duff was reluctant to say, but he freely admits his club have a negative mindset to shift.

"It's a Yorkshire trait, glass half-empty," he says, and having grown up in Bedale and had a year as Barnsley manager, he is probably enough of an adopted Yorkie to get away with saying it.

Huddersfield must get to a different mental place after relegation, just like Sheffield United and Rotherham United this season. Unbeaten in the Championship, the Blades have done it well, the Millers are still getting there. Town are somewhere in the middle but 12 points from six games tells you they are much nearer the positive end.

Being in a different division means a different mindset says Tom Lees, playing in League One for the first time this season.

"If you're fighting to stay in the league it's about getting a certain amount of wins, whereas now we've got to win the majority of games," says the ex-Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday centre-back.

"The way teams play against you will be different and it's a different group of players.

"But fundamentally there are things in football that never change no matter what division you're in. You've got just got to try and do the right things more often than not.

"People probably think we've got a big squad but I can't remember too many teams who have come down and cruised back up in recent years."

It affects the way Town play too.

"We've gone from being an out-of-possession team to having a lot more of the ball and that changes the crowd expectations of what is and isn't a good performance," points out his manager. "We've gone from wanting to press high when we used to bank in.

"My last game for Swansea was against Huddersfield and we had 78 per cent of the ball. Lots of things have changed and mentality is the biggest one.

"I think the club got to a point where it was used to losing and a mentality of (he puffs his cheeks out) – we need to get rid of that. It doesn't mean you have to lose the next one because you lost the last one.

"It's not going to happen overnight. A lot of the squad were here last season so they're a little bit damaged by that but there's enough new faces and quality of the group.

"It's been two really successful season in amongst 10 ones of struggling. Culture's the buzz-word but we need to get into do the right things, habit-forming, so you don't worry about the result because it's a bi-product of what you're doing."

The key is not to over-react either way, a strength of both, fortunately.

"People might think I don't show too much emotion but I know how quickly it can bite you in the backside, getting too carried away by a win or a loss," argues Lees.

"I am not by any stretch dismissing what happened at the weekend at all but equally I'm realistic that at some point in the season it's not all going to go your way and that's when you've got to be able to focus on what's happening and not let it snowball into something else.

"It's one of my favourite things about the manager that he's very recently been a player and he's been in successful teams so he knows the mentality you've got to have.

"We've hardly celebrated winning because the performances haven't been the great.

"On Saturday we were poor and we don't need anyone to tell us that. We know we're going to have to be better against Blackpool.

"I'll take a win playing badly, don't get me wrong, but you know as a player whether you've been at it and you can feel it on the pitch if you're the better team."

Free from new injuries, Duff will go searching for positives.

"There's lots of signs of progress but on Saturday we took a punch on the nose," he says. "It's recognising why we failed.

"The reaction wasn't great and we need to make sure if we do get a few moans and groans we stick together and get back to the process of why we've been successful.

"I'd like to think if we get beaten by Blackpool it's not because they ran harder than us. That would be the real disappointment.

"There weren't many positives on Saturday but there were a couple so we'll try to take them out of it because we need to be better."