| Huddersfield Town 1 v 1 Ipswich Town SkyBet Championship Saturday, 30th September 2023 Kick-off 15:00 |  |
McKenna: A New Manager Always Brings an Energy to the Home Crowd Friday, 29th Sep 2023 09:56 Second-placed Town travel to Huddersfield on Saturday aiming to maintain their 100 per cent away record with boss Kieran McKenna and expecting Terriers fans to greet new manager Darren Moore with a big atmosphere at the John Smith's Stadium. So far the Blues have taken 12 points out of 12 from their Championship games on the road, winning at Sunderland, 2-1, and QPR, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton all 1-0. The Terriers, having finished 18th in the Championship last season, nine points off the drop zone, are currently 17th and unbeaten in four having drawn their last two matches, 2-2 at home to Stoke in former boss Neil Warnock’s final match in charge and 1-1 at Coventry on Monday in his successor Moore’s opening game. The West Yorkshiremen’s away form has been slightly better than their results at home so far this season with five of their nine points having been picked up on the road. At home, they have won one - a 2-0 success against Rotherham a fortnight ago - drawn one and lost two, including a 4-0 hammering by Norwich City. McKenna was asked whether Huddersfield’s recent change of manager had impacted the Blues’ groundwork ahead of the match. “There are no changes to the structure of how we prepare,” he said. “Of course, in terms of the detail of what we try to predict from Huddersfield is now different. “They’ve had one game under the new manager and a different system and organisation. That game becomes really, really relevant and something that you look at. “On the other hand, it’s only one game and you can’t predict everything from it. I think from a mental point of view, we have to be really ready from the fact that we are facing a team with a new manager going into his first home game. “That always brings an energy to the crowd and the opposition that we have to be prepared for and have to go and deal with. “Our preparation, in terms of how we do our work, stays pretty stable. But the things that we can expect from Huddersfield maybe changes a little bit. “But probably the biggest piece is being ready for the psychological change that [a new manager] can bring. We have to stand up to that and use it to our advantage if possible.” Moore departed Sheffield Wednesday in the summer having seen the Owls to promotion from League One and McKenna says the one-time centre-half fully deserves the chance to manage back in the Championship, where he has previously worked with West Brom and Wednesday. “It’s fair to say [that he deserves it],” McKenna said. “He did a good job with Sheffield Wednesday and put together 96 points last year, which of course in pretty much any other season would have been enough to win the league. “It’s great to see him back in a managerial role at a well established Championship club. I’m sure he will be looking to make his mark on the team as soon as possible.”
Town’s home games have tended to be high-scoring this season with 21 goals having been bagged between the teams in the Blues’ four Championship matches at Portman Road, while only six have been netted in the four on the road. Quizzed on that disparity, McKenna reflected: “I think it is still a pretty small sample size. We are probably talking about four away games and four home games, so I don’t think we can necessarily read everything into that. “We certainly can’t go into Saturday expecting it to be one way or another. We go into every game trying to be positive and aggressive and brave, with or without the ball, and that mindset doesn’t change too much, home or away. “We’ve had a couple of really solid 1-0 wins away from home and we’ve had a couple of really exciting open games at home. “But our mindset doesn’t change too much and our tactical set-up doesn’t change too much. We will try and be positive and try and defend as well as we can and be ready for everything the game brings.”
Aside from suspended skipper Sam Morsy’s enforced one-game absence, Town look set to return to the side which beat Blackburn last week. Vaclav Hladky will be in goal with Harry Clarke at right-back and Leif Davis, who is expected to be fine despite aggravating his ankle injury against Rovers last week, on the left with Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess the centre-halves. Lee Evans seems most likely to come in for Morsy and if that’s the case will probably wear the captain’s armband, as he did in the Carabao Cup victory over his old club Wolves on Tuesday. Massimo Luongo will take up his regular role in central midfield alongside the Welshman with Wes Burns, Conor Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead behind striker George Hirst. Historically, Town have won 22 games between the sides (including the only cup tie), the West Yorkshiremen 14, with nine ending in draws. Town’s most recent win was a smash-and-grab 1-0 victory under Mick McCarthy in February 2016. The teams last met at the John Smiths Stadium in January 2017 when goals either side of half-time from Izzy Brown and Christopher Schindler saw Huddersfield, who were eventually promoted to the Premier League via the play-offs that season, to a comfortable victory over the Blues. Brown netted on 41 and Schindler 12 minutes after the break, while Town never looked getting back into the match once they had gone behind. In the previous October, the Terriers recorded their first win at Portman Road for 20 years as Schindler’s second-half header saw the Terriers to a 1-0 victory. The Blues, who were beaten at home for the first time in the league that season and failed to score for the fourth successive match, never looked like getting back into the game after the German centre-half had put the visitors in front from a 58th minute corner. Huddersfield have two former Town strikers on their books, Jordan Rhodes and Tyreece Simpson, however, the duo are on loan in League One at Blackpool and Northampton respectively. Saturday’s referee is Geoff Eltringham, who has shown 25 yellow cards and one red in his six games so far this season. The County Durham-based official’s last Town match was the 1-0 win at QPR last month in which he cautioned Luongo and four home players. Prior to that, he officiated in the 2-2 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at Portman Road in February in which he awarded the Blues a penalty after Marvin Johnson had elbowed Burns, an offence spotted by his assistant. The officials couldn’t be sure which player committed the offence but Eltringham included the incident in his match report and Johnson was retrospectively banned for three games. Two Owls and no Blues were booked during the match. Before that, he was in charge of the 1-1 home draw with Cheltenham in November in which he cautioned Morsy and three Robins. He was also in the middle for the 2-1 home victory over Accrington Stanley in January last year in which he booked Edmundson, Tom Carroll, Bersant Celina and three of the visitors. Prior to that, he refereed the 2-1 loss at Reading in March 2019 in which he yellow-carded Jon Nolan, Toto Nsiala, Gwion Edwards and four Royals. In the preceding December he had taken control of the 2-0 defeat at Stoke in which he again cautioned Edwards as well as one Potter. A couple of months before that, he was the man in black for the 2-0 home defeat to QPR in which he booked just one visiting player. Before that he took the whistle for the second half of the 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough in December 2017 when he replaced Robert Jones at the break and booked Celina and one Teessider. Eltringham refereed the 3-2 defeat at Leeds in September of the same year when he cautioned Jonas Knudsen, Cole Skuse, Jordan Spence and one home player, and was also in charge of the 2-1 win at Barnsley the previous month in which he yellow-carded Iorfa, then on loan with the Blues, Knudsen and one Tyke. He was the referee for the 3-1 loss at Fulham in April 2017 in which he booked three home players and Blues captain Luke Chambers. Eltringham also took control of the 2-2 draw with Reading at Portman Road two months earlier in which he cautioned Knudsen and two of the visitors and the 0-0 draw at Blackburn in October 2016 in which he booked only one home player. He also refereed the 1-1 draw at Sheffield Wednesday in April 2013 when he kept his cards in his pockets throughout. His first Blues match was against Leeds at Elland Road in January 2012, which ended 3-1, in which he red-carded on-loan Town keeper Alex McCarthy for handling outside the area thereby denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity and booked Luke Hyam and one Whites player. Squad from: Hladky, Slicker, Clarke, Williams, Davis, Ball, Woolfenden, Burgess, Edmundson, Baggott, Evans, Luongo, Taylor, Humphreys, Burns, Jackson, Chaplin, Broadhead, Harness, Aluko, Hutchinson, Hirst, Jackson, Scarlett, Ladapo.
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