After 11 games of the season, Huddersfield Town are top of the Championship, ahead of the likes of Newcastle United and Norwich City.
Huddersfield Town manager David Wagner
Huddersfield Town have never played in the Premier League, haven’t been in the top flight since 1972 and were playing the fourth tier as recently as 2004. Yet the Terriers are now genuine candidates for promotion to the Premier League, having very quietly recruited one of the most exciting managers in the English game and had a fine summer.
Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Sheffield Wednesday; the Championship is full of so-called ‘big hitters’, but after 11 games, comparative minnows Huddersfield are top of league, with the likes of Brentford and Barnsley also having had bright starts to the season.
Whilst Newcastle United and Aston Villa spent in excess of £100 million over the summer, undergoing major rebuilding jobs under Champions League winning managers, Huddersfield Town’s more modest summer activity went rather under the radar.
Nahki Wells celebrates scoring for Huddersfield
The rest of the Championship may be expecting, or at least hoping, that Huddersfield will fall away between now and May, but Town fans have reason for optimism, and ought to be quietly confident. They are not first in the division by fluke, and the statistics show that any team who leads the division at this stage is virtually guaranteed to make at least the play-off’s.
After 11 games in the Championship last season, the table had already taken shape, with the eventual top 6 placed 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th. Brighton were in almost the exact same position as Huddersfield are this season. From 11 games, Brighton had 25 points and a goal difference of 7. Currently, Huddersfield have 25 points from 11 games and a goal difference of 6.
In fact, the parallels between Brighton last season and Huddersfield this season are extensive. The Seagulls finished 20th in the Championship the season before last, and barely anyone considered them promotion candidates going into the 2015/16 campaign. Last season, Huddersfield finished 19th, and only those who followed their progress intimately over the summer had them down as possible outsiders.
Parallels can be drawn between Huddersfield and Brighton
Brighton began the 2015/16 season very brightly, going on a long unbeaten run and often beating teams by a one-goal margin. Whilst Huddersfield have lost twice this season, all eight of their victories have come by a solitary goal.
This was a stick that the Seagulls were repeatedly beaten with by opposition fans, just as is starting to happen with Huddersfield, as supposed evidence that a drop in form and simultaneous slip down the table is imminent. However, such theory is, to put it bluntly, nonsense.
Brighton did suffer a drop in form, as virtually every team does at some stage during the long hard slog which is a Championship season, but they did not fall away or collapse, they proved what a well-drilled outfit they were and maintained an automatic promotion push throughout the season, one which didn’t end until the final day.
Brighton had to beat Middlesbrough on the final day
Whilst it is simplistic and untrue to boil Huddersfield down to being merely ‘this seasons Brighton’, the similarities between the two are noteworthy. And as with Brighton, people shouldn’t expect the Terriers to fall away. They are not a team playing on adrenaline or form, they are a very well-managed group working hard for their manager with some seriously talented second tier footballers.
Much has been made of David Wagner’s relationship with Jurgen Klopp, and it is undoubtedly something which will have shaped the former US internationals coaching style, with Klopp recently commenting that Huddersfield’s story was a great one.
Appointing a so-called ‘understudy’, or reserve manager, as Wagner was, having coached Borussia Dortmund’s second team for four years, was a risk for Huddersfield. Middlesbrough and Derby undertook similar risks in appointing Aitor Karanka and Paul Clement, with the two experiencing rather different fortunes last season.
David Wagner is enjoying a good first full season in Yorkshire
A tight bond can be crucial in the Championship. Virtually every promoted Championship team in recent years has been noted for the spirit and togetherness of its squad, and that is something Wagner certainly instilled in the Huddersfield squad over the summer.
The Terriers also had a busy summer in terms of transfers, with a total of 13 senior fresh faces arriving at the John Smith’s Stadium, if one includes loan deals. Five players joined from German clubs, with the further addition of Ivan Paurevic, who worked with Wagner at Dortmund II.
These were clearly signings Huddersfield wouldn’t have been capable of making without Wagner at the helm, and all have helped hugely bolster a squad which finished far closer to the relegation places than the play-off places last season.
Aaron Mooy has been Huddersfield’s outstanding player
Despite the quartet of German arrivals, it has been Manchester City loanee Aaron Mooy who has won the most plaudits during the first quarter of the Championship season. The Australian international has looked an absolute class act in the Huddersfield midfield, and looks every bit a Premier League player.
Mooy is one of those most rare types of players who seem to have a natural and unerring ability to find time and space for themselves. A set-piece specialist and a player with an excellent range of passing, Mooy was deployed as a holding midfielder earlier in his career, but it is in a more attacking and creative role that he has really flourished.
Melbourne City deserve a great deal of credit, having taken him from Western Sydney Warriors, he became widely regarded as the best player in the A-League with Melbourne, prompting Manchester City to take a look at him and ultimately bring him to England.
Mooy is under contract at Manchester City
His immediate loaning out surprised few, the step-up from A-League to a midfield containing the likes of David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and one in which Yaya Toure can’t get a look in is simply too great. There were even certain sections of the Huddersfield faithful who had their doubts, after all, Mooy has never really been consistently challenged at a level on par with the Championship.
Those supporters have been made to eat humble pie though, and the Socceroos supporters who have been waxing lyrical about the 26-year-old for a couple of years now appear to have had a point. Mooy ranks among the top tacklers as well as being a pass master and adding a touch of class to the Huddersfield midfield.
Ultimately, there are some very strong squads in the Championship this season. Newcastle and Norwich will challenge, as will Brighton, with Sheffield Wednesday, Reading, Bristol City and Birmingham all likely to be not far behind. But no team has missed out on the top 6 having been top at this stage in the Championship over the last decade, and there are more reasons to believe Huddersfield are here to stay than there are to expect a sudden or imminent collapse.
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