[Lord Snooty]

Reading v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Saturday September 28th - 12:30 ko
at the Madejski Stadium



AND THEN

Birmingham City v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Tuesday October 1st - 19:45 ko
at St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park

Huddersfield Town embark on an away day double header this week with trips to Reading at the Majestic Ballroom on Saturday lunchtime and then we meet our old leaky blinders friends Birmingham City at St Andrews @ Knighthead Park on Tuesday night.

Being away from the toxic atmosphere of the John Smith's Stadium will hopefully be a blessing for our beleaguered boys who have had all their confidence knocked out of them by two depressing home defeats. There will be a similar feel to the atmosphere at the Reading ground as their fans ar planning some kind of protest, which if what we're led to believe could come in the form of a match ending, pitch invasion. The difference here being that their beef is with the Board and not particularly the players.

I don't know. It's just a game, for goodness sake.

Thankfully we will have the vast experience of top striker Danny Ward, back in the starting XI after his enforced mini break. Hopefully, his knockers will have noticed how much we miss him when he's not there, as his replacements have not managed half of the work he gets through. The same goes for Jonathan Hogg, the General. He may be past his best, but we didn't half miss him on Tuesday night with that powder puff midfield showing. Apparently Hoggy had a tight groin for the Blackpool match, which isn't as bad as feared and so should make the start of this one. Mickel Miller and David Kasumu could both also feature somewhere over the next two games and Chris Maxwell is said to be over his virus issues.

Not such good news about Michal Helik though. He's got a hamstring injury and will miss the next two months.

Here's a summary of the Michael Duff post Blackpool interview which I've knicked off of Steven Chicken on We Are Terriers........

“The staff will look at it in terms of did we pick the right team? Is it the right shape? But we played three shapes there and didn't look good in any of them.

“We’ve got players that 10 days ago looked really good, set play delivery was good, first contacts were good, distances were good between the units…today we looked like we can't take a free kick, can't win a header, can't win a tackle.

“We’ve got three central midfielders in the middle of the pitch and their two are absolutely dominating them — should be the other way around.

“The game's gone. We didn't deserve to win the game, so I think this is bigger than the game today, it's bigger than the three points we didn't get. The frustration on my part is we haven't seen that in the week, so they’re Jekyll and Hyde in terms of the way they train and the quality and the energy and the intensity, and then mainly at home, whenever anything sort of half gone against us, we've sort of capitulated.

“It's a mentality. It has to be a mentality, because you don't become a good player and a bad player in 10 days. That's what we have to get some of at the football club.

“We need to earn the supporters’ trust. The supporters have watched two or three years of really, really poor performances, so it's hard to get them off their seats and we didn't do that today. It was a hard watch and there’s no getting away from that.”

And here's the pre match presser for Reading.........



I've not done any of my usual features for this match thread. For one, we've done Reading and Birmingham City many times over the last few seasons and quite frankly if the players can't be bothered to turn up, then neither can I. In summary though, we played Reading at Wembley a few years ago and Birmingham are a bit of a bogey team at the JSS, but we do quite well at St Andrews.



Tickets:

Reading:

South Stand

Adult - £23/£28
65s and over - £17/£20
18-24 years - £14/£17
17s and under - £9/£12
13s and under - £6/£9

Upper West Stand

Adult - £24/£29
65s and over - £19/£22
18-24 years - £16/£19
17s and under - £11/£14
13s and under - £7/£10

Family Area

Adult - £18/£23
65s and over - £17/£20
18-24 years - £14/£17
17s and under - £6/£9
13s and under - £2/£5

Official coach travel will be available for this fixture, priced at £34 per-person. Departure will be from our St Andrews Car Park at 6am.


Birmingham City:

Adults - £25
65s and over - £20
16-24 years - £15
Under 16s - £10

Official coach travel will be available for this fixture, prices at £22 per-person. Departure will be from our St Andrew’s Road Car Park at 3.30pm.









Head to Head



Reading lead the head to head with 27 wins to Town's 18, with 14 draws.

The last game was played on the 8th of May 2023. Reading were heading for relegation, we had just completed a great escape under the management of Neil Warnock.......

Town lead the head to head with 44 wins to Birmingham's 41, with 36 draws.

Twelve months on from that Reading game, almost, on the 27th of April 2024 came our most recent meeting with Birmingham City. Both teams were heading for relegation this time and were both booed off by each set of supporters. Re-live that special moment here.......

Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 0-2 Blackpool
Town 1-3 Northampton
Bolton 0-4 Town
Doncaster 2-1 Town (EFL Trophy)
Rotherham 2-1 Town
Walsall 3-2 Town (EFL Cup)

Bolton 5-2 Reading
Reading 0-1 Leyton Orient
Reading 2-0 Charlton
Wrexham 3-0 Reading
Reading 3-1 West Ham u21s (EFL Trophy)
Reading 2-0 Wigan

Brum v Posh (Saturday)
Rotherham 0-2 Brum
Brum 3-1 Wrexham
Brum 1-1 Walsall (EFL Trophy) (Brum lost on pens)
Brum 2-1 Wigan
Brum 0-2 Fulham (EFL Cup)

Town are 5th in the League One table with 12 points. Reading are 17th with 7 and Birmingham are 2nd with 16.

[theo_luddite]

Ho hum, buy in haste, repent at leisure. After the Bolton win I bought my ticket for Brum, hoping for a better display than last season's phoned-in-no-show. As Sgt. Wilson might have said on Dad's Army - "Do you think that was that wise, sir?"

[jjamez]

So the questions on my mind are

What are the EFL going to do, if indeed the reading fans get this called off, are they going to mess up like they did against Blackpool or will they award points/rearrange? Tbf a smart reading fan would see how we've done and keep the game on.

Reading I think try to play more than Northampton and Blackpool so it could suit duffball, but then again, Blackpool played around us eventually we were that absent.

Second question, if we lose both games that makes one win in 8, including cup games? What happens, I mean if you throw the games further back the stat changes, so it can be altered to anyone's agenda, but it still doesn't read well, especially if you are wanting promotion. What happens then over the international break?

[Lord Snooty]

Lose these two and it's not just one win in 8, it's 7 (seven) defeats in 8.

[jjamez]

Two of which were against teams in a division lower, one against a side in our division that could be classed as a relegation candidate in Northampton.

Couple that with wins but poor performances against Shrewsbury and Stevenage. Do they plus the Northampton and Blackpool defeats overshadow the posh and Bolton away performances?

Are we actually any good, or are we just the same shite side as the last two seasons but in a league lower?

[theo_luddite]

Tempted to think the latter when there's only been one coaching combination got a tune out of this lot and only for a few weeks after Corbs bailed and even then we didn't turn up every week either. I'll stick with my half-time assessment from the other day however.

Why is Duff sat on the bench when the team is still in the dressing room at half-time and why is he (and anyone else on the coaching staff) still sat on the bench 3 minutes and change into the 2nd half if he's trying to motivate this lot? Bruce was kicking every ball for Blackpool.

Meanwhile down Both Ends way - do they need feeding more or do they just like raw meat?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/202...-owen-beck

[ritchiebaby]

Ho hum, buy in haste, repent at leisure. After the Bolton win I bought my ticket for Brum, hoping for a better display than last season's phoned-in-no-show. As Sgt. Wilson might have said on Dad's Army - "Do you think that was that wise, sir?"

If we manage to lose these two games, then I'm afraid the quote belongs to Private Frazer - "We're doomed, doomed!".

[Lord Snooty]

Town’s team vs Reading

1. Lee Nicholls

4. Matty Pearson

6. Jonathan Hogg ©

7. Callum Marshall

10. Josh Koroma

15. Jaheim Headley

17. Brodie Spencer

18. David Kasumu

21. Antony Evans

23. Nigel Lonwijk

32. Tom Lees

Substitutes

Jacob Chapman; Lasse Sorensen, Ben Wiles, Bojan Radulović, Mickel Miller, Freddie Ladapo, Joe Hodge

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Huddersfield Town Head Coach Michael Duff has made six changes to the starting line-up for today’s Sky Bet League One game at Reading; 12.30pm kick-off at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

With Michał Helik missing through the injury he sustained against Blackpool on Tuesday evening, Matty Pearson comes in for his first league start of the season.

Brodie Spencer also returns for his first start in five games following his shoulder injury, replacing Lasse Sorensen. The Dane is among the substitutes this afternoon.

Club Captain Jonathan Hogg returns to the team as skipper alongside fellow midfielders Antony Evans and David Kasumu, replacing Joe Hodge, Ben Wiles and Herbie Kane.

Our final switch comes in attack, with West Ham United loanee Callum Marshall replacing Freddie Ladapo.

Mickel Miller is back among the subs following his injury; he replaces Kane in the match day squad.

---

No Ward. Injured again?
No Iorpenda either.

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---

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Make that seven changes. Chapman is in goal.

[Lord Snooty]

There's a late change to our team, as Jacob Chapman is starting in place of Lee Nicholls. Unfortunately Lee picked up an injury during the warm-up.

We have Academy goalkeeper Francis Hurl with us today for the bench.

[theo_luddite]

Get in, well followed up Peo