Huddersfield Towns fantasy premier league prospects

Fantasy Premier League

Here’s Huddersfield Town supporter Matthew Brown with an excellent article on Huddersfield Towns fantasy premier league prospects.  Newly promoted teams can have hidden bargains and Matthew talks through formations, potential lineups and the best players to choose for your FPL team

Fantasy premier league – Huddersfield Towns fantasy premier league prospects

So after a few years of following Fantasy Football Geek I find myself in the unusual position of having some expertise to offer in the latterly niche interest subject of Huddersfield Town. I did think of sitting on this competitive advantage but it seemed rude not to share the knowledge having picked up many tips on here previously. So here is an overview of Huddersfield’s likely line up and some background information to help you decide if any of the Terriers are worth the gamble that most pundits would assume they are.

Fantasy football Draft

Formation & Tactics

Under David Wagner Huddersfield are strict devotees of 4-2-3-1 and unless chasing the game in the last 10 minutes will be very unlikely to play any other formation. One of the many secrets to the Terriers success last season was how well drilled they were and the key to this was getting all the transfer targets signed before the end of June, so it came as no surprise this summer to see Huddersfield again make 8 signings before pre-season had even started.

David Wagner has been excellent at nurturing an amazing unity and team spirit but (in relevance to FPL) one of the ways he achieves this is to very much view his team as a squad rather than a strongest XI. This means regular rotation and whilst not quite in the Pep Guardiola league of random changes you can expect players to fairly regularly miss games. Particularly with the full backs and widemen.

Huddersfield play a German style pressing game and in the Championship would always expect to comfortably have more possession than their opponents. I recall a 2nd half against Newcastle where it stood at 80%! How they react when this isn’t the case remains to be seen. Allied to this is superior fitness and Huddersfield frequently scored late on having finally worn the opposition in to submission.

A headline statistic is that Huddersfield were promoted with a negative goal difference; the freak result of a couple of thrashings at the hands of Fulham and a curious record-beating amount of single goal victories. The issue here was really of resources, Huddersfield possessed a decent Championship level striker in Nahki Wells but one who was totally unsuited to the way in which David Wagner’s team play. On a limited budget Huddersfield struggled to find a good enough hitman to fit our system.  So although we dominated possession and laid barrage to penalty areas we struggled to get someone on the end of crosses. With lack of finance now being a problem of the past Huddersfield have strengthened heavily in the forward line.

Goalkeeper

Penalty saving hero of last season Danny Ward has returned to Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp has (theoretically) kept him back to challenge for Liverpool’s starting line up. So enter Jonas Lossl, very much an unknown quantity but judging from pre-season is the nailed-on number 1. He looks a big presence and will certainly get lots of shot stopping practice this season, notable from pre-season also is his accurate long passing where he’s already picked up an assist.




Defence

It’s difficult to imagine Huddersfield stacking up lots of clean sheets this season, however as a rotation option they could offer good value. Although Huddersfield play 4-2-3-1 this really changes into 2-2-5-1 when we have possession with both full backs pushing incredibly high up. This means from a FPL perspective that there could be some decent returns from the full backs. Tommy Smith exemplifies this the most and doesn’t need asking twice to get forward chipping in with valuable goals and assists-a-plenty last year. He’s also the captain and it’s hard to imagine him not starting most games.  Although he’s just come back from injury he started in the friendly last night and I expect him to start GW1.

Chris Lowe at left back gets forward just as much, however his returns were not as high as his partner on the left side Rajiv Van La Parra is a lot more single minded and didn’t use Lowe as an option as much as Kachunga used Smith on the right. However Lowe finished the season as penalty taker and also took half of the corners, though in pre season it appears Tom Ince appears to have taken corners away from him. Additionally Scott Malone has been signed at left back and whilst Lowe appears to be first choice for now Malone will certainly get game time and was in the Championship team of the year last season for Fulham.

At centre back it will be two from Schindler, Hefele and Jorgenson. It would seem Schindler is likely to get one of those spots with the other very much up for grabs. There are some cheap 4.0 priced defenders in the Huddersfield squad but none are likely to play, Hudson is more of a coach now, Stankovic injured until Christmas and Cranie seems to be under threat as Wagner appears to still be shopping for right back cover. Cranie also picked up an injury in last nights friendly so looks even more unlikely to start.

Midfield

Huddersfield have four players competing for the ‘double pivot’ positions in front of the back four; Aaron Mooy, Jonathan Hogg, Danny Williams and Phil Billing. Of these Wagner tends to pick a tenacious ball winner alongside a ball player. Mooy is the ball player and the first name on the team sheet with Billing providing back up for him. Whilst patrolling in front of the defence Hogg is the most likely to start but under pressure from Williams – in any case neither will get remotely close to scoring a goal!  Hogg unfortunately was also injured last night and will miss the first few games of the season.  This means Williams should take his place.

A quick word on Aaron Mooy. I’ve noticed him in quite a few people’s teams and whilst he is a top top player I don’t really think he offers value for FPL managers. He almost plays like a quarterback for Huddersfield and often is the key player in instigating attacking breaks, however he usually assists the assister.  Whilst I’d expect him to get the odd goal it wouldn’t be enough to merit a £5.5m price tag. He does however take most free kicks and corners – though this didn’t help his assist tally much last season as the Terriers lacked physical players to attack set pieces.  Mooy has just come back from the Confed Cup for Australia.  He started last night and although looked a little rusty I expect him to start GW1

On to the attacking threesome. Prior to his injury in February Kasey Palmer played in the middle of the three with Kachunga and Van La Parra either side of him. I’d expect all three to get plenty of game time but this season Tom Ince has also been thrown into the mix. It still seems that Wagner is trying to decide on his favourite combination of the four but at the moment Van La Parra seems the most likely to miss out.

There is a further selection dilemma too as both Ince and Kachunga (last season’s top scorer) prefer to play on the right. Ince in particular looks nowhere near as threatening on the left which is where he played in the latest friendly against Stuttgart. Smith to Kachunga was the most common goal scoring combination in the Championship last season and it would seem a shame to break that right-side relationship up. Ince has been scoring regularly however in pre-season and for his goal threat alone I think will make the starting lineup.

Of the rest it’s hard to see Bunn, Scannell and Lolley featuring much if indeed they are still here at the start of the season. Whitehead is in the squad mainly for his personality and effect on the younger players believe it or not, so again not a FPL pick.

Forwards

There seems to be no doubt at all that record signing Steve Mounié will lead the line on the opening day. He seems to be the striker the club has been crying out for and he has responded with goals in pre-season. However I’m cautious and echo the Geek and other managers in being hesitant with strikers who are new to the EPL.

Depoitre will be the main back up with Wells highly likely to have been sold to a Championship team before the end of August. Quaner is worth a mention, whilst he can play up front he’s often used as an impact sub or as cover for the midfield three so if he should find himself with a run of games at any point then at £4.5m he’s a potential short term bargain.




Summary

Clearly a tough season awaits Huddersfield, but worth reminding anyone not familiar with their story that they started last season as bookies favourites for relegation and with a team built on a shoe string budget. So most fans are ignoring the bookies again and are quietly confident that the excellent manager and well drilled system will see Huddersfield again equal more than the sum of their parts. This could mean some potential bargains and with a fairly decent set of opening fixtures then if you were to gamble on a differential now is the time.

In my own FPL team Ince seems a definite pick as he has the ability to score goals from nothing that not many £6.0m mids do. I also hesitantly have Lowe in my team mainly due to the chance of penalties and a good set of fixtures, but I’m nervous about the threat of Malone to his place.

Good luck!

Thanks for this very insightful article Matthew.  My pick is also Ince btw

Buy our 57 page Ebook “a guide to fantasy premier league 17/18” with loads of graphics and detailed stats on 150+ players from last season. Only £3.00

the FFGeek league code is 5379-1967

Try the new way of playing fantasy premier league football by clicking DraftFantasyFootball.co.uk here or on the banner below. It’s free to play.

Fantasy football Draft

Follow us on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

You may also like to read one of these too: