Huddersfield Town 3 v 1 Preston North End

Huddersfield Town v Preston North End

Saturday 26th December

3pm

So are we all ready for our festive feast of football? Our Boxing Day fixture brings back old friends Simon Grayson, Tom Clarke, Jermaine Beckford and Joe Garner. I’m not sure if Beckford is in contention for this or if he is still out injured. Anyone know?

Beckford scored some good goals for us whilst on loan, one in particular sticks in my mind and that was an overhead kick against Wolves at our place. A real beauty. Garner seems to be doing well for PNE, pity he didn’t do the same for us when he was here on loan, but he’s older now and more experienced. I’m pleased Tom Clarke has made a good career for himself over in Lancashire; he was very unlucky with injuries when with us but always gave his all.

Preston currently lie 16th in the table with 25 points while we’re 19th with 21 points, so not much between us But I believe we will need to be on top of our game to get anything from this match.

I didn’t go to Brentford but from the sound of it we forgot our high intensity pressing game and ended up being 3 down in the first half. We cannot afford to do this again; we need to replicate the form we showed against Middlesbrough and Sheff Wednesday. I know we lost both those games but we played well and showed the energy and commitment Wagner expects from the players. It was also good to watch.

Wagner has shown he isn’t scared to rotate the players in an effort to make sure they are fresh and fit but he is still limited in his selection as we do lack strength and quality in depth.

Hudson has been getting a lot of stick on social media and while I admit he is slowing down, our poor defensive record is not all down to him. It seems to me (and I’m no expert believe me) that our decision making is poor and we increase the pressure on ourselves at times. I’m happy to be corrected if you disagree.

We look very weak up front and while I think Miller has borne the brunt of the supporters’ frustrations he is not solely to blame. We have been weak in this area for quite a while now. I’m still undecided about Wells, his first touch can be awful at times and he also seems to lack composure, easy for me to criticise I know as I’m not the one running around and listening to any moans and groans from the crowd.

So what do we think the team will be on Saturday? I don’t normally do this but I’m going for (in no particular order)

Steer
Smith
Lynch
Hudson
Chilwell
Carayol
Dempsey
Paterson
Scannell
Bunn
Wells

Scoreline: 3-1 to us.

I’m probably going to be wrong on both team selection and score line but never mind

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good ‘un