Huddersfield Town v Plymouth Argyle: Terriers 'digging into' injuries as depleted squad prepare for Pilgrims
Huddersfield Town are trying to get to the bottom of an injury crisis that has ensured a raft of players will miss their meeting with Plymouth Argyle.
The Terriers have picked up just one league win in two months, causing pressure to mount on manager Lee Grant and his players.
While much of the criticism being directed at Huddersfield may well be justified, the extent to which the club have struggled with injuries cannot be ignored.
Joe Low and Alfie May are the latest to have joined a lengthy list of absentees already featuring Jack Whatmough, Murray Wallace, David Kasumu, Marcus McGuane, Herbie Kane, Will Alves, Antony Evans, Leo Castledine and Zepiqueno Redmond.
Lynden Gooch may also miss out against Plymouth and Grant has insisted the persistence of injuries – particularly calf problems – cannot be swept under the carpet.
Huddersfield Town digging into problems
"It’s really difficult in terms of trying to pinpoint,” he said. “But you have to look at everything. We can’t accept the fact that we’ve had three or four of a similar-looking injury.
“So you have to look at pitches, we have to look at training load, we have to look at preparation, we have to look at what players are doing away from the football club. All of these things have to come into the equation.
“We don’t feel settled about it, to be honest with you, we don’t feel like this is something we can just brush away. It’s something that we need to really, really dig into and there’s a lot of people at the football club doing exactly that right now.
“We’ve been incredibly unlucky with injuries as well. We’ve had players running in straight lines on several occasions with nobody near them and breaking feet or doing knees and being out for four months. We’ve had people falling and doing shoulders. We’ve had the full spectrum of bad luck.”
‘Can’t be in that boat either’
Huddersfield’s resources are undeniably being stretched and although a thorough investigation into issues is being conducted, Grant does not want his side to feel sorry for themselves.
"We also don’t want to be as daft as to say ‘it’s just not going our way’ and ‘poor us, poor us’,” he said. “We also can’t be in that boat either.
"We have to be prepared to look at everything across all departments to make sure we’re giving the players the best chance, individually, and of course, the players as well have to make sure they’re doing everything they can at their end.
“History will also play a part - each individual player’s histories and where they’ve been at and what’s affected them in the past as well. We have to take everything into account.”