Wigan Athletic v Huddersfield Town: Michael Duff wants under-fire Terriers to shake off criticism and worry

By Duff’s own admission, it is perhaps not a bad thing Huddersfield will battle Wigan away from the John Smith’s Stadium.

A barren run on home turf has sparked unrest among supporters and agitation developed into demonstration after their 1-0 defeat to Peterborough United.

The Terriers battled back from a dismal run earlier on in the campaign and must rediscover the strength they showed with scrutiny intensifying.

“They've all been through it before,” Duff said. “It's having the mentality, you've got to go through it and not care. You've got to be prepared to make a mistake and not worry if you make a mistake.

"If you walk around in your life worrying, nothing good happens anyway. You might make a mistake and you might get a bit of stick off the supporters. But it's having the courage to forget about it.”

Duff has made a point of acknowledging anger from the stands while taking care not to throw his players to the wolves.

Huddersfield still sit fifth in the League One table but have lost considerable ground on the automatic promotion places.

Duff will also be aware of how unforgiving the third tier can be, with the recent tumble of his former club Barnsley an example of how quickly promotion dreams can fade.

“We've all been criticised,” Duff said. “The reaction from the supporters at the end is understandable.

"They're frustrated as well. The best things are when you've come through some sort of shared hardship. We've come through it once this season and we're going to have to come through it again.”

Their next opponents, Wigan, sit 16th in the table and have not tasted victory in exactly a month.

"The thing with football is there's always an opportunity,” Duff said. “There's always a game next week, whether it's the Tuesday or the Saturday.

"The players know we need to be better. It might not be a bad thing we're away from home at the minute because there is a bit of a thing [at home]. We've just come off the back of a positive couple of games, [but it was] disappointing in every aspect of the game. We'll try to crack on and improve.”