[Lord Snooty]

Ipswich Town v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday May 4th - 12:30 ko
at Portman Road

Huddersfield Town travel to Ipswich to the Alf Ramsey Arena on Saturday lunchtime for a game of football.

After Tuesday night's victory away at Coventry, the Tractor Boyz only need a point to gain automatic promotion to the land of milk and honey, also know as the Premier League. A bit of a poisoned chalice maybe, but once you've got to this position, you have to give it a go. Remember 2017 and how excited we were? Well, that's what the Ipswich fans are having now. They just don't know what evils lie ahead.

It's been 22 years since they've been there and have more recently been a League One side. They were relegated in 2019 and didn't get back up again until this time last year. They clinched promotion with a 6-0 win over Exeter City.

Six-nil? Hold my beer!

The game is live on Sky Sports and we will be just a footnote in the coverage. We'll be expected to roll over and let them win easily. And that might well be how it pans out, but we must approach the game professionally and do the job for our noisy neighbours.

Yeah right!

Will we even have Andre Breitenreiter in charge after all the speculation this week? Who knows? Who even cares? The season's gone. We've been relegated. Let's get it over with.

Tickets:

UPPER TIER

Adults - £34
Over-65s - £27
Under 23s - £20
Under 19s - £12

LOWER TIER

Adults - £30
Over-65s - £24
Under 23s - £19
Under 19s - £11

FREE COACH TRAVEL

Town supporters making the final journey with us to Ipswich can benefit from free coach travel to the game! Wanting to see as many Terriers as possible with us on the road, the Club has committed to covering the cost of ten coaches.

Seats are strictly one per supporter and you must have a valid match ticket in order to join us, with places available on a first-come first-served basis. Our full away travel terms and conditions are available below.

Please note: Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult on the same coach.

TRAVEL INFORMATION

Our official travel coaches will depart from St. Andrew's Car Park at 6am on match day (Saturday 4 May).




Head to Head


Ipswich lead the head to head with 22 wins to Town's 15, with 9 draws.

I covered all this in the thread for the home game back in September, so if you want to go and have a look, click the link below. It also has the Brief History of Ipswich Town, the Club Connections article on Marcus Stewart and a bit about their manager, Kieran McKenna.

https://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=12553

That match at the JSS this season ended in a draw, another one where we couldn't hold on to a one-nil lead. Ipswich were in second place in the Championship at the time, the 30th of September (we were 17th), and this point took them above Leicester City who had been top all season, but regained that lead the following day.

We had looked good for all three points, in a game I didn't attend, can't remember why, but by all accounts was one of our best performances of the season. Delano Burgzorg gave us the lead in the 61st minute, before doing his party trick of balancing on the ball for no apparent reason. Before the inevitable happened and Brandon Williams headed in a late equaliser to give the Tractor Boyz a share of the points.

Huddersfield Town manager Darren Moore:

"It was a good, solid performance. We set out our stall early in the game by disrupting Ipswich from settling into their play and their rhythm.

"And then we got the ball into real threatening areas of the pitch; we could have capitalised more with the chances we created.

"We had the more clear-cut chances in the afternoon and I was pleased when we got the goal because we deserved to get our noses in front.

"I'd have liked to have seen us extend that because the game was disrupted by the substitutions we were forced to make.

"When Ipswich did score, we didn't allow them to go on and win the game, which was pleasing because it would've been a travesty from our point of view."


Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna:

"We need to stay humble and keep learning. There's parts of the team and the group that are relatively inexperienced at this level and we'll learn lots from a game like today.

"We're in the middle of a busy schedule and against a motivated team with a new manager and that makes for an excited crowd and energetic group of players.

"It was a tough-fought and competitive game; we had to fight really hard for the point and we can take positives in the way that we kept going.

"We were the team at the end of the game that looked likelier to get the winning goal and that shows good resilience and ambition from the group.

"It's a good point because we didn't play anywhere near our best but we just need to keep focusing on our performances."

Snooty's season review and a look ahead to life in League One:

It's been rubbish, hasn't it?!

Sure has!

It started off well enough. Some massive pre season victories against Bodmin, Liskeard, Stockport and SC Heerenveen gave us all hope of a season of at least mid table comfort with Neil Warnock and Ronnie Jepson steering the good ship Huddersfield Town into calmer waters than of late.

But as soon as the real thing got under way, mistakes started happening. A 3-1 defeat away at Plymouth, in which Warnock said that we had to work hard to lose that one, was a sign of things to come. That was followed by a Cup defeat at home to Boro and then a home loss to champions in waiting, Leicester City. Signs were encouraging despite the three defeats.

The first of the 18 draws of 23/24 came up at Middlesbrough, but that was followed by a comedy of errors at home against Norwich.

It was at this point, after four matches under the leadership of the great manager who had saved us from relegation the season before and was persuaded to stay on by thousands of fans at the last home game of that campaign, that the club's heirarchy decided to let him go. Immediately after a brilliant 2-1 win down at West Brom, Warnock was told of the Board's decision. And despite backing that up with a win over Rotherham and a draw at home to Stoke, they stuck with that decision.

We were in 16th place and rising when Neil and Ronnie left the building. What came next was a disgrace. Neil kept saying that they hadn't told him who he was being replaced with. Must be somebody big. A name that would make people sit up and gasp in amazement that little old Huddersfield Town had managed to acquire the services of.

The way Jake Edwards spoke of the man at the press conference, I genuinely think he thought we had done such a thing. But the name of Darren Moore was announced and nobody, nobody at all, was impressed.

His era started badly, got slightly better with a late equaliser at Coventry, reached a peak on Boxing Day at home to Blackburn, but the inevitable happened shortly after the debacle at Loftus Road, where we failed to hold on to a lead, not for the first time, and ended with a 1-1 draw.

Then the fun began and the real Huddersfield Town finally woke up. Under the leadership of Jon Worthington as caretaker manager, we played with freedom. A 4-0 win at home to the Wednesday moved us 8 points above the Owls. Surely they would never catch us now.

That was followed by the best match of the season, down at Southampton. We lost it obviously, but playing in the true Terrier Spirit, having raced into a 3-1 lead, we just couldn't match the quality of their substitutes and eventually lost 5-3.

Next up came a Wednesday night win at home to Sunderland, completing our only double of the season. And then the only defeat of the Worthy games, a 2-1 defeat at home to Hull. By that time we could say, meet the new boss.

Same as the old boss? Too bloody right.

In came Andre Breitenreiter, slowing the game down again with boring, boring football. Just like Mr Moore, he got lucky in his first game with two late goals from supersub Danny Ward, with other supersub Tom Edwards getting an assist for the winner. A fortunate victory.

He soon lost the dressing room. For whatever reason, the lads just weren't up to the job of playing out of position, playing without strikers or even playing with enough discipline to see out a win without giving away late penalties.

The inevitable happened last week against fellow relegation candidates Birmingham City, but the damage had already been done. Not that hammering at home to Swansea. The damage was done in August and we never recovered.

So where do we go from here? (Is it down to the lake I fear?)

Not quite, but we are going to a few places that we haven't been to for a while. Coming up from League Two will be Stockport, Mansfield and Wrexham, with all their Netflix n chill stuff. Some Town fans won't have seen us play those three, it's been that long. Not played Stockport since a 6-0 win at Edgeley Park in 2010. Wrexham haven't been on our fixture list since 04/05 and apart from a League Cup game in 2006, we haven't played the Stags since that memorable 0-0 draw in Cardiff in 2004.

One of MK Dons, Donny Rovers, Crewe Alexandra and Creepy Crawley Town will also be making the trip to the John Smith's Stadium. If it is Crawley, it'll be our first ever meeting.

There will be a few familiar club crests appearing on the scoreboard, teams we've played in the Championship recently like Wigan, Charlton and Reading and of course Rotherham. Maybe Barnsley if they don't win the Play Offs. And Bolton, their semi final opponents. The other two Play Off players are Oxford United and those posh twats from Peterborough.

Also definitely on our league schedule are Lincoln, Stevenage, Leyton Orient, Exeter, Northampton, Bristol Rovers, Cambridge, Shrewsbury and Burton Albion. Names there that should any of them come away from the McAlpharm with any points at all, will have Town fans gnashing their teeth in anger.

Wycombe Wanderers are still in League One, as are Blackpool. Always gets the young 'uns excited that one.

Which games are you all looking forward to? I fancy a trip to Wrexham to have a gawp at the Leigh Richmond Roose memorial. Amelia fancies Stevenage. I'll let her explain that one.

Tuesday night's line up away at Coventry:

31, V. Hladký
40, A. Tuanzebe
3, L. Davis
25, M. Luongo
4, G. Edmundson
15, C. Burgess
7, W. Burns
5, Sam Morsy ©
24, K. Moore
20, O. Hutchinson
33, N. Broadhead

Subs:
1, C. Walton
6, L. Woolfenden
10, C. Chaplin
14, J. Taylor
19, K. Jackson
21, J. Sarmiento
27, G. Hirst
28, L. Travis
30, C. Humphreys


Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 1-1 Birmingham
Town 0-4 Swansea
Bristol C 1-1 Town
PNE 4-1 Town
Town 1-0 Millwall
Stoke 1-1 Town

Coventry 1-2 Ipswich
Hull 3-3 Ipswich
Ipswich 1-1 Boro
Ipswich 0-0 Watford
Norwich 1-0 Ipswich
Ipswich 3-2 Southampton

Town are 23rd in the Championship table with 45 points. Ipswich are 2nd with 93.


Leading scorers:

Terrierz:
Michal Helik (9)
Delano Burgzorg (7)
Josh Koroma (6)

Tractorz:
Conor Chaplin (13)
Nathan Broadhead (13)
Omari Hutchinson (10)




Anagrams of the Huddersfield Town 2023/24 season:

1. Ponced Berries
   
2. Lorenzo Drug Bag
   
3. Aberdeen Tin Terrier
   
4. Mod Steward
   
5. Yeah Sheryl
   
6. Bile News
   
7. Weak Arsed DJ
   
8. Rear Doormen
   
9. Pesioner Jon
   
10. Geneva Link
    

[Lord Snooty]

---

Pathetic questions from the Radio Leeds lot. They're obsessed thinking that we're obsessed with Leeds United.

Pathetic!

[jjamez]

Some more shade from das bomber, we're going down and he's making sure that the rotten players know that there's a storm coming. He knows that we expect 100% as a minimum and if these players get named and are here next season they are gonna have to play out of their skin otherwise there will be hell to pay from the stands.

Speaking of bad apples, numero two is Delano burgzorg, a man I truly hope isn't there tomorrow

---

3 is our Andre and 9 is Mr rocket man

[jjamez]

7 Jake Edwards
Last one our kev

[Lord Snooty]

Personally, I think he's talking shite and throwing the whole squad under the bus to save his own reputation. And suddenly seeing as he's come out and slagged everybody off, including Lord Neil Warnock, everyone on soshul meeja thinks he's the dog's bollocks again. Well I've got used to being lied to by people in authority, from politicians to football club chief executives and I'm calling bullshit on this one.

Basically he's saying the squad are unfit, now, in the month of May, because Warnock took them on a golfing trip in the summer.

But that seems to be just my opinion. I don't think he's any better than Siewert.

Hope I'm wrong.

[jjamez]

Respectfully snoots I might have to disagree, I don't think it's a face saving ploy, I think it's true and was last year too, there's too many half arsed players in that squad.

It feels like they think they should turn up for half 9 have a gym session, out on pitches, have food and be heading home for 2. The Scott Malone interview the other week showed what's wrong with the majority of modern British players. They want mollycoddling, heaven forbid they are asked to do a second session in the afternoon and have to leave training at the unreasonable hour of half 4/5 pm. News flash to them, there's a lot of people who work way longer than them some even double jobs and earn less in a year than they make in a month.

Some of these players think that they are elite or could be, some have played the odd international game Yadda Yadda, if you want to be elite, look at Ronaldo, like him or loathe him, you don't get where he is, or like he is by doing 3 hours a day.

People ask why the likes of Manchester city and Liverpool get so far ahead of everyone, yeah money helps, but so does the multiple training sessions, the team meetings, the tactics meetings. Those players start early and finish late, maybe not every day but probably a good two/three times a week fixtures depending.

Our lot want to be home living the high life playing Xbox or playstation, they are lazy. Under Wagner he used to have two double sessions a week, one of which would be entirely attacking, the likes of Hogg, Schindler, heff etc weren't required to be in, but they did, and they went to the gym and made sure that they would be fit to play 120mins, our half arsed lot want to be able to last an hour, maybe because there's 5 subs available. They are pathetic, Warnock of old would have slaughtered them, fergie would have slaughtered them. They need home truths not cuddling. Warnock did that last year but we were well and truly fucked when he came in and that's what the situation required. The malaise has been here a while and it needs a full rip out and get players in that will do what is needed. Some of the more impressionable players will follow suit. Relegation has been coming, and it's here, now we need to sort it out

---

If you want to be up there with the best you've got to train harder and better than the rest, you put the time in on the training ground and the rewards come, a lot of our lot think it will be handed on a plate to them, divine right or whatever, maybe that's a new psychological thing, maybe it's agent nonsense or maybe it's skewed video game universes. But that isn't what happens. Train hard, work hard, play hard, achieve more.

Back before I was born players would try their balls off because they knew fully well if they didn't, they'd be out on their arses looking for proper work, half would be down the pits working 10 hours in pitch black.

[Lord Snooty]

When Mick Buxton first look over, the first thing he did was get rid of the snooker table. He sorted out the bad influences and got in a different mentality.

I know he's not had long, but so far he's failed. Whining about it to Katherine Hannah won't do the trick. It'll just turn the players further away. Like what happened with Siewert.

Whatever Carlos had with the players is what we need now. The players loved him and it showed in the performances.

[jjamez]

I think Carlos had professional players that would do what was needed.

Pearson, Hogg, lees bought in. Toffs O'Brien would run through walls anyway. Colwill was probably used to the sort of mentality coming from Chelsea.

Turton was a solid pro anyway, he seems like the sort that would turn up at 11pm if told. Russell was young, from Chelsea and was probably willing to do anything to get in the side, notice he changed when some of the good influences left. Thomas was looking to make a name, he now has one and showing his true colours. Rhodes has long been a good pro, Holmes as much of a joker as he was, he was willing to do what was needed.

Notice we've lost a lot of those characters, it's always going to be hard when the good apples are outnumbered by the bad ones

[theo_luddite]

Personally Snoots I've no evidence to prove whether Brighton Writer is talking crap or the truth, but Colin's best efforts (if you can call them that) only resulted in two wins this season. There was a newspaper headline about Colin's so called thoughts on Town's position, which was the usual click-bait that said more or less nothing of the sort. As with most foreign coaches it's hard to put the life and the proper emphasis into the way you talk, let alone the words you might really use when you aren't speaking your mother tongue. I'm pretty sure I sound totally crap when I'm holding (or trying to hold) a conversation in German with one of Herr Flick's fellow citizens.

He comes across as more honest than the Scottish wack-job and more open than Darren Moore. The results across all three this season have been the same. A point a game. The more or less consistent thing has been the squad, fit or not. OK, it wasn't the easiest set of fixtures on paper at the start of this season but neither was the end of last season. Town chose to pull the plug for their reasons, those we won't find out from anyone that was around at the time, but they clearly didn't think all was as rosy in the garden as the tinted glasses some were wearing. I'm not absolving our Chairlump from his part in sticking his oar in on Twatter either when he could have kept indoors what should have been kept indoors.

We've plenty of players that can play well when they pull together, but there's obviously a core in there that have the same attitude as too many in the Prima Donna League 2nd year side that decided they wanted to be somewhere else other than here. Even The General hasn't managed to put a word in and say, hey, you don't get fit in the tat lad's chair or down the snooker club. Burgzorg for one couldn't pay me enough to take his shirt off him and get it framed. If only he'd framed? He could pay me to drive him home though. George Best had more idea of teamwork in his big toe nail than that lad has in his body. There's a few others, on loan or otherwise, that haven't lived up to their transfer fees often enough and we've managed to bring in another load of players that spend more time with Wardy in the treatment room than they do on the pitch.

Who would I keep - well being lazy, I'd start with Wakey's list on the last thread. A few others we might have to see who else wants them first but I doubt there'll be a queue of Managers from clubs that are:

a): bottom 3 of the Prima Donna League at the end of this season, let alone anyone who finishes above them.
b): Leicester, plus L666s, Ipswich or whoever else goes up.
c): Anyone else that misses out in the play-offs or finished just below.
d): Portsmouth, Derby and one of the other 4 in the play-offs. They might come sniffing for a player or two we'd rather like to keep, but they aren't going to throw £millions at us. We are more likely to be looking at some of their cast-off's.

I still don't get the love in with former Stoke employees either, whether on the pitch or even worse up in the boardroom or elsewhere. They all failed with far more brass to throw around than we've ever had.

PS. In two jobs Colin won 2 league games this season - he's not the Messiah, but I doubt I could call him a very naughty boy.

[WakeyTerrier]

I’ve a list of players that I won’t put on here that have been causing problems. Some you would have no problem guessing, others that would surprise you. I’d imagine at least 3 or 4 of that group will be off in the summer and a couple more need to knuckle down because they aren’t good enough. The rest need to change attitudes