Huddersfield Town’s priority is pulling off survival mission - mini-season build-up

Granted, they lost their final match before matches were suspended for covid-19, but a 2-0 defeat at Leeds United is nothing to be ashamed of.

The back-to-back home wins over Bristol City and Charlton Athletic which proceeded that were much more encouraging.

The front four of Chris Willock, Emile Smith Rowe, Karlan Grant and Fraizer Campbell seemed to have quickly clicked, and with Lewis O’Brien prompting from deeper, the football being played was good to watch.

The 40-point staging post Danny Cowley had set his team had been passed .

Those players the manager did not trust have been identified and moved on, if only temporarily in a lot of cases. After the despair of the first nine months of 2019, things seem to have stabilised and turned back in an upward trajectory.

So you would like to think the final nine matches of the Terriers’ season would be about continuing that feelgood factor, and building some momentum to take into 2020-21, even if there might have to be changes to that front five.

But with a standing restart like everyone else, Huddersfield have to do what it takes to keep their heads above water first.

For all the positive impact the Cowley brothers have had since they arrived in West Yorkshire, Town are only three points above the relegation zone.

Defeat at home to Wigan in their first game back will see the Latics jump above them in the 32-day sprint the relegation battle has become.

The John Smith’s Stadium is where 26 of Huddersfield’s 42 league points have come this season, but in this final phase of the campaign, what will home advantage count for?

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from certain Premier League clubs that having to play on neutral venues would handicap them by denying them the familiarity of home but in the Bundesliga’s behind-closed-doors games, the visitors have won more than the hosts.

There is, though, a feeling that if Huddersfield can get through this difficult first season back in the Championship, they can kick on. If the league had started on the Cowley’s first day in charge, his team would be five points outside the play-offs, not 14.

There was a sense as the club found its feet after a busy January transfer window that the future could be much brighter. But the world before covid-19 now feels like a lifetime ago.

Despite only being 19, Smith Rowe was emerging as a pivotal figure in the hole behind Campbell, but Cowley said he was having to pick and choose the teenager and Willock’s matches because they were not yet fit enough for the physical slog of matches which is par for the Championship course.

Have Huddersfield been able to put the strength and conditioning work into them on lockdown which will make up that gap, or is it impossible without matches around it? Will three months of inactivity level the playing field somewhat? Will five substitutes?

Huddersfield do not have the squad depth of some, with only 14 players into double-figure starts in this season’s Championship.

The Arsenal youth products are only on loan until the end of the season, and Gunners manager Mikel Arteta has already shown an eagerness to trust young players which suggests he might err on the side of bringing Smith Rowe back into the camp sooner rather than later, but maybe such a fragmented half-season might convince him the youngster needs to continue his footballing education, and that he has found a good environment for it in Huddersfield.

Willock came through the same youth system, but is now at Benfica. A strong final nine matches will surely make Huddersfield want to keep him but how will the new financial realities they face – there has been talk their post-Premier League relegation parachute could be cut by 25 per cent next season on top of all the other economic problems of the pandemic – affect that?

Equally, will it make it harder for the clubs who cannot fail to have noticed the qualities Grant and O’Brien have been showing this season to prise them away, or make it more important for the Terriers to cash in?

Whatever players they have to work with, Huddersfield have certainly got a high-quality manager and the rare thinking time Cowley has been granted will not have been put to waste.

The initial success of his January transfer work not only suggest an unsurprising eye for talent, but also an ability to operate in a market largely new to him, having worked his way up from lower down the pyramid.

As a club, there seems to be more of a long-term plan, and Huddersfield have emerged from hibernation with a new head of football operations, Leigh Bromby, and stand-in chief executive Mark Devlin given the job permanently. Cowley has been working on a “football curriculum” for all levels of the club to follow.

If the transfer market does collapse, we are about to embark on an era where youth takes on a far greater importance, and Cowley involving more youngsters in the squad – partly through pragmatism, but a lot too because of principle – could pay dividends in the 20-man squads of this season as well as in next.

In early March, Huddersfield felt like an exciting club to be at once more. It is important they recapture that feeling between now and late July, but there is a job to do in the here and now before anyone can think too much about the future.

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