Southampton v Huddersfield Town: McDermott urges Terriers to repay chairman's faith

TERRY McDERMOTT has urged Huddersfield Town to repay the financial support of chairman Dean Hoyle by claiming maximum points from this week's travelling odyssey.

The Terriers are spending five days down south to aid their preparations for tonight's game at Southampton and the trip to Gillingham on Saturday.

Chairman Hoyle is footing the bill in an attempt to give Town as good a chance as possible of bolstering their play-off push and assistant manager McDermott wants the players to justify the gesture.

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He said: "The two games would involve a lot of travelling and being on the coach for five hours on a Friday is not ideal preparation.

"I think it is a fantastic gesture from the chief executive (Nigel Clibbens) and the chairman to allow us to stay down south for five days, because it is not cheap," he said.

"However, if it helps us achieve promotion it will be justified. We want to repay the owner and come away with four to six points from the next two away games."

Huddersfield, who will use Portsmouth's training facilities tomorrow and Thursday, go into tonight's game on the back of an 11-game unbeaten run.

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They will be further buoyed by last month's trio of consecutive wins on the road that helped propel Lee Clark's men back into the play-off places.

McDermott said: "Southampton are a very good team. The pitch at their stadium is fantastic, they have a decent manager who knows the game and it will be very difficult.

"Not many teams relish going to Southampton, who have made some significant investment over the years.

"They have players who have featured in higher divisions and I am not at all surprised at how strong they look. They paid just under 1m for Rickie Lambert (from Bristol Rovers) this season, too.

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"However, some of our best performances away from home this season have been against the top teams and if we can replicate that kind of performance against Southampton then there is no reason why we can't take something."

Saints began the season on minus 10 points after going into administration but are a club on the up after an encouraging recent run of form that included a win at leaders Norwich City.

The 800,000 outlay on Lambert in August was followed by Alan Pardew spending another 2m in the January transfer window but the south coast club remain 17 points adrift of sixth-placed Town.

It means Southampton will be desperate to inflict Huddersfield's first league defeat of 2010, though McDermott is quick to stress how the impressive manner of the display against Leeds has boosted confidence levels at the Galpharm Stadium.

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He said: "I thought the Leeds game was a great advertisement for League One football.

"I also thought it showed how far we have come as a club since we came in just over a year ago.

"I thought we deserved to win last Saturday and if we continue to play as we are doing, there is no reason why we shouldn't be celebrating come May.

"We have 13 games left and if we play to our capabilities, we have a great chance.

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"The minimum we are looking for is the play-offs, but we are still striving for automatic," he added.

Clark may be forced to change his starting line-up for the first time in six outings due to both Lee Peltier and Antony Kay being doubtful for the trip to St Mary's.

Peltier limped out of the weekend derby draw with Leeds United with an ankle injury but any fears over serious damage were yesterday allayed by an x-ray. The former Yeovil Town defender remains a doubt, though, along with former Barnsley player Kay, who suffered a calf strain against the Whites.

Last six games: Southampton DWLWDW, Huddersfield Town DDWWWD.

Referee: P Miller (Bedfordshire).

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Last time: Southampton 4 Huddersfield Town 0; October 5, 1994; League Cup.

Aston Villa defender Richard Dunne will miss the Republic of Ireland's friendly against Brazil tonight at Emirates Stadium after picking up a muscle problem.

The centre-back played in Sunday's Carling Cup final defeat to Manchester United at Wembley, but will not now join up with the rest of the Ireland squad, manager Giovanni Trapattoni confirmed yesterday.

The Italian, however, will not be calling in any late replacement.

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On-loan Celtic striker Robbie Keane has rejoined the squad after initially being ruled out after aggravating a knee injury during Sunday's Old Firm defeat by Rangers. He may now replace striker Leon Best.