The manager had little option but to take a conservative approach to the game against Watford last time out but will now want to add more attacking impetus to those foundations
Huddersfield Town May Have Found The Answer Darren Moore Needs To Evolve His Side
Huddersfield Town have been missing a back-to-goal striker since Danny Ward’s absence started in September – only it turns out they’ve had one all along.
Neil Warnock had previously declared all his strikers bar Ward to be unsuited to playing a lone striker role, but Darren Moore was forced to field Kyle Hudlin in the role against Watford on Saturday with all five of his other viable centre-forward options missing.
The results were encouraging: we noted in our five conclusions just how effective Hudlin was in using his long frame to shield the ball, while his careful efforts meant he avoided falling afoul of the big striker’s usual curse: being whistled for a foul the moment they so much as breathe down a defender’s collar. (In fairness, that would be an odd thing to do, but it’s not explicitly against the laws of the game as far as we can tell
Huddersfield Town have already proved they can turn crisis into opportunity
Town’s necessarily conservative approach to that game meant that Hudlin could have been left isolated, but they still showed some signs of how Moore may be able to thaw the side out into something more attacking as he gets more and more of his preferred options available – without making such a radical shift that it risks destabilising the side altogether.
It took a monstrous pair of efforts from wingers-on-the-day Sorba Thomas and Jaheim Headley to support Hudlin in the press while still making sure their own respective flanks were protected, and just as big a shift again for them to make sure Hudlin was well assisted on the ball too, pushing inside to receive his knock-backs and flick-ons while Ben Jackson and Yuta Nakayama provided the width.
In other words, there were the inklings that Town could viably move towards a more explicit evolution into a 3-4-3 formation, which had gone effectively unused since Mark Fotheringham gave the shape its last outing away to Coventry back in late January.
Back then, Town did not have the personnel to make it work. Matt Lowton did nothing to answer their issues at wing-back, while Josh Ruffels was yet to hit the ultra-dependable form he found under Warnock, and Jordan Rhodes has always been much more about scoring goals than trying to help create them for others.
Now, though, it’s a different story. Having been exiled by Fotheringham, Thomas is back at the club and back in form. That is crucial: he had been the key man in making 3-4-3 work for Carlos Corberan two years ago, and can be again now.
Jackson’s excellent performance at right-back helped answer the question of who to play with Thomas. A natural two-footer who slightly favours his left and has a good shot on him, he could be ideally placed to serve as an inverted wing-back (that is, a wing-back who effectively becomes an extra central midfielder).
That would, in principle, help solve two problems for Town. First, it naturally complements Thomas’ strengths as a player who likes to stay out wide; secondly, it helps bolster the midfield numbers in possession and could thus allow Ben Wiles to take on greater licence and get into the box in search of goals.
Replace Headley with either Josh Koroma or Delano Burgzorg, and you have the inverse relationship going on on the other side, with Nakayama, Ruffels or Headley being the one going around the outside from wing-back.
None of this would mean anything without an unselfish centre-forward to help tie it all together in the approach. Hudlin is still something of a rough gem, and over the longer term a more established option would be desirable. But for the next few games, at least, Hudlin has made a very good case that he could be that player.
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