League One season starts here, insists Huddersfield Town chief Michael Duff as Terriers focus on final third after dual setback

The final days of the winter window are likely to pass off quietly at the John’s Smith’s Stadium, certainly in terms of new signings, with Kevin Nagle confirming that to be the case ahead of Tuesday night's home loss to League One leaders Birmingham City.

After 16 league games without defeat, promotion-chasing Town have now copped successive 1-0 reverses on home soil.

Injury concerns continue to stalk Town. Big-money signing Joe Taylor missed the Blues game as a precaution after reporting a slight issue in his hamstring on Monday, while defender Tom Lees came off with a facial injury late on Tuesday.

A less crowded schedule in February, allied to the closure of the transfer market, will at least afford Duff requisite time to fully integrate new signings Dion Charles, Ruben Roosken and Taylor and also bring other players recently back from injury fully up to speed.

The onus is on Town to regain some momentum and embark on another strong run of form as they did from mid-autumn until recently, with sharpening up in the final third being Duff’s chief focus.

He said: “We are in a funny spell at the minute. Ruben has not played a lot of football and Lasse Sorensen has been out for three or four months. We couldn’t play Radinio (Balker) and Joe Taylor has not played a lot of football and Antony Evans has missed a lot.

“So we’re trying to get people fit on the job while playing good teams so it's tough. You are trying to glue it all back together again.

“I think we will come out of the window a stronger team than the one that went in. But you get the feeling we got everything out of that team before (mid) January and squeezed every bit out of that team and we’ve got to restart again almost. That’s what it feels like.

“People in my job don’t like the January window because the reason why we are getting people is they have not been playing anyway.

“We just need to get back on the training ground and work on things we need to work on.”

While the narrative is in danger of shifting for Town, with focus turning away from their long unbeaten run to a sequence of one win in their last six league outings, Duff insists that now is not the time to panic.

He continued: “It’s two losses in four months. It is what it is, we lost a game of football and have got to learn and get back to the training ground and see who’s fit and isn’t and work on the things we need to work on which is basically the top third of the pitch and when we are in deeper areas of the pitch, when to go in behind.

“When we played them (Birmingham) at their place, the last half an hour was ‘men against boys’ and I didn’t think that was the case here, I think we have made strides.

“It's disappointing we have lost back-to-back home games, but we have not become a bad bunch all of a sudden.

“There was an honesty in the performance, no-one was jacking it in and throwing their arms up in the air saying ‘it’s not me, look at him, blame him’.

“It’s not an application thing, we’d just like a bit more quality.”