Match Preview: Brighton v Huddersfield Town
It’s no exaggeration to say that the visit of Huddersfield Town to the Amex is the biggest game that Brighton and Hove Albion have faced since winning promotion to the Premier League.
A victory against the Terriers would lift a lot of the gloom surrounding the club following just one win in 12 league games. It would put a little more distance between the Albion and the relegation zone and instil some much needed belief ahead of further home games against fellow strugglers Southampton, Cardiff City and Newcastle United which are still to come.
Defeat doesn’t bear thinking. Losing at home to comfortably the worst side in the division who have just three wins to their name would be confirmation that we are in real trouble. The players already look a little bereft of confidence and defeat in such a crucial game against such poor opponents in front of our own fans could do irrevocable damage to any remaining belief they have lost.
The entire 2018-19 season and Brighton’s future as a Premier League club could hinge on this one game. Gulp.
Who are Huddersfield Town?
Huddersfield Town were formed in 1907, although they very nearly ceased to exist in their current form within nine years of their founding. The Terriers owners wanted to make them the original Milton Keynes Dons by upping sticks and moving the club to Leeds. Fan power won the day on this occasion however with Town fans being asked to buy shares for the princely sum of £1 each to prevent the relocation. They duly did that and the people of Huddersfield were rewarded for their dedication by having one of the best teams in the country throughout the 1920s. Under the legendary Herbert Chapman and his successor Cecil Potter, they became the first ever team to win three successive English titles between 1924 and 1926 to go with the FA Cup of 1922. After World War II, the club fell into a gradual decline as they flitted between the top three divisions. The Terriers took a financial gamble in an attempt to return to the top flight in the late 1990s but this backfired spectacularly as they slipped into administration and the bottom tier before a remarkable rise over the last 15 years or so to the Premier League.
What are they like now?
Their return to the top division has been one of the great fairy tale stories in English football of the past couple of seasons. Under the ownership of local businessman Dean Hoyle, the Terriers won promotion out of the Championship in 2017 despite having a wage bill that was in the bottom six of the division. Even more impressive, they then managed to stay up last season when many pundits were predicting a points total even lower than Derby County’s record breaking 11 of 2007-08. Much of this against-all-odds success was down to manager David Wagner and Huddersfield were dealt a severe blow when the German resigned in January. Having appointed Wagner from Borussia Dortmund Reserves in 2015, the Terriers took the exact same approach to finding his successor with Jan Siewert also coming in from the German giant’s stiffs. Siewert’s got his work cut out though, with Huddersfield bottom of the table, 13 points adrift of safety with just 10 games left to play.
Which players should we be worried about?
Maty Ryan’s fellow Socceroo Aaron Mooy is probably Huddersfield’s best player and defender Christopher Schindler has to make any list of the Terriers most important individuals. In the Albion’s previous home game with Burnley we saw two former Seagulls score with Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes both netting. Given this penchant for names from the past coming back to haunt us, what odds on Alex Pritchard being in the goals on this occasion? The midfielder was on his way to join the Albion from Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2016 when he got stuck in traffic on the M25 so he turned his car around and signed for Norwich instead. This actually worked out very well for Brighton. Without Pritchard, Chris Hughton didn’t have a number 10 to call upon for the 2016-17 season and so was forced to play 4-4-2. The Albion walked to promotion using that formation and then signed the far superior Pascal Gross for a third of what Pritchard would have cost. Cheers, M25.
What’s the Albion’s record against Huddersfield Town like?
The vast majority of the 57 meetings between Brighton and Huddersfield have come in the last 20 years as we’ve climbed through League One and the Championship almost simultaneously. The Albion lead the head-to-head with 23 wins to Town’s 18 and there have been 16 draws. This will be the first time the teams have faced each other since Wagner’s departure, which Hughton will no doubt be pleased about. Before Brighton’s 2-1 win at the John Smith’s Stadium in December, Wagner had something of a hold over the Albion boss having only tasted defeat twice in the five previous games despite Brighton always being above the Terriers in the table.
What’s the best WeAreBrighton.com memory of Huddersfield Town at home?
Leonardo Ulloa scored the first ever hat trick at the Amex when Huddersfield came to town in February 2013. Brighton won 4-1 that day with David Lopez the other scorer. A repeat of that would be very, very welcome.
What’s the worst WeAreBrighton.com memory of Huddersfield Town at home?
Losing 1-0 at home to Huddersfield in November 2008 gave us Micky Adams saying in his post match press conference that “the players just need a hug”. No they don’t Micky, what they need is a bloody big kick up the arse.
Who’s played for both sides?
Speaking of Adams and another insane moment from his second spell at the helm, he began that 2008-09 season by deciding that Calamity Colin Hawkins was a better centre back option than Joel Lynch, to the point where we found ourselves in the ridiculous situation of having a player that Adams didn’t deem good enough for a side battling relegation to League Two who was starting on loan at a mid table Championship club in Nottingham Forest. Lynch eventually made a permanent move to the City Ground before joining Huddersfield, where he enjoyed a relatively successful couple of seasons. That’s more than can be said for Elvis Many, who we loaned to the Terriers for the second half of the 2015-16 season. Sorry about him, Huddersfield fans.
Other than football, what is Huddersfield famous for?
Huddersfield is a surprisingly big place, being the 11th largest town in the United Kingdom. Its growth came largely during the 1800’s thanks to the Industrial Revolution and as such, much of the architecture is from the Victorian Era, including the station which is one of the most beautiful in the country. The town was the birthplace of Rugby League, the vastly inferior version of egg chasing which northern people bizarrely obsess over and also gave the world two giants of science fiction, Jodie Whitaker who is the current Doctor Who (a bloody woman!!!!) and Sir Patrick Stewart who played that bald bloke who used to sit in a chair in Star Trek.
Where’s the betting value for Brighton v Huddersfield Town?
It’s very rare that you find Brighton as odds-on favourites for a game in the Premier League, let alone when they’ve won just once in 12. That says much about Huddersfield’s own struggles though, with the Terriers taking just one point from their past seven away games and scoring only twice. Despite that, this has cagey game written all over it from our point of view and so draw half time/Brighton fill tome at 15/4 makes some appeal. For those feeling a little more confident, our partners at FansBet have boosted the Albion to win by exactly two goals to 9/2.
Prediction
Right now, we’ll take a 1-o win scored over Gaetan Bong’s arse. And that’s what we think will happen. A cagey, single goal victory with a clean sheet to boot. But not Bong scoring of course, don’t be silly.
