Hudson believes Town have set the benchmark

The Christmas and New Year period is approaching fast in the Football League and for the Championship that will mean the season passing the halfway stage.

With only the Premier League teams playing on New Year’s Day, that does at least lessen some of the burden but, nevertheless, there can be little doubt that some clubs in the second tier will be tested to the full over the holidays.

If that does happen to Huddersfield, however, captain Hudson insists Chris Powell’s side will be able to cope.

“You are only as strong as your bench and ours is strong at the moment,” said the signing from Cardiff City, who helped the Terriers keep a second consecutive clean sheet on home soil in Saturday’s derby draw with Sheffield Wednesday.

“Joe Murphy (who came in for the injured Alex Smithies) showed that. ‘Keepers rarely change but he has kept himself ready and performed well.

“He did really well and took a couple of whacks but he bounced back up and looked solid. He took his chance well. Alex has a bad back, which is unlucky for him.

“But Joe came in and did well and that sort of shows the strength in depth that we have got at the moment. We have people coming in and performing so it is great.”

As if to underline Hudson’s assertion about the depth Powell has at his disposal even without the injured James Vaughan and returning duo Adam Hammill and Joe Lolley, the bench against the Owls included top scorer Nahki Wells, former captain Lee Peltier, Danny Ward, Jack Robinson and Jonathan Hogg.

The goalless draw with Wednesday ended a two-game losing run that had seen Town concede six goals and sets up Saturday’s visit to Bolton Wanderers.

Hudson added: “It will be a tough trip and we need to improve our record on the road. We need to play like we do at home and then the results will start to turn.

“We were disappointed not to take our chances against Wednesday but to get a clean sheet after the last two games was a positive and something to build on.”