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Tuesday 28 February 2012

Luck Of The Draw

Well, well, well... Simon Grayson has barely got his feet under the table and the ghost of Lee Clark is already haunting him. A standard and efficient victory on Saturday against Exeter was a good start for the Leeds man, even if there were signs of recent problems, but then Deja Vu hits us.
It was brilliant to see Joey back in the starting line-up for the match down at the Lamex this evening, possibly that lynch-pin in the centre of the park that would offer us more stability, as oppose to Anton Robinson... The two goals came and the team seemed to b playing well, but then it happened as it has 14 times this season. That's right we've drawn 14 times this season, 13 of which have come from and the one we didn't mess up was that horrible evening at Victoria park, when my highlight of the day was eating not one but two pies.
So we did it again, and it's now becoming inevitable and to an extent mildly amusing how we always manage to shoot ourselves in the foot. There will be many of you reading this that are still incensed by what happened, but I have now become far too accustomed to this sort of result that I can type this without rage ebbing through my veins.
The management need to address this problem as soon as possible, as it's clear that Lee Clark could not find a way to fix it during his time at the club. The solution is not so easy however, as I think it is largely a mental problem that the players have. Are we a team full of losers? A team full of bottlers? Or do we simply fall into an arrogant complacency? These are issues that Simon Grayson, Glyn Snodin and 'Dusty' Miller need to sort out. My method would be to get the players in tomorrow morning and spend the entire day playing out small matches off attack and defence. It might be an idea to give the defending team a match situation to envisage, let's say perhaps that of defending a 2-0 lead, on the other side we would have our most potent attacking threats, and practice this scenario until they got it right. If they don't get it right, then Grayson and company should berate them and go ape-sh*t at them, and maybe in a match they might be able to see out a lead through fear of what may be waiting for them in the dressing room if they don't
You don't see a Manchester United team regularly doing this sort of thing, because the players know for a fact if they did that Ferguson would destroy them in the dressing room, and maybe this is what we need.
The play-offs are a certainty for us this season, as we clearly don't posses the mental strength to secure second spot, and we all know what happens in the play-offs. As Larry has said himself, we won't begin to see his influence on the team until probably the start of next season, I don't know if this is a pre-excuse, but hopefully for us he's wrong. Hopefully his influence rubs off on the team in time for the play-offs, and we can shake off the ghost of Lee Clark, the one that is prone to self-destruction and falling at the final hurdle. Hopefully, just hopefully.

Monday 20 February 2012

I'm back, and by God things have changed

Hello and welcome back to TerrierBlog, after taking a sabbatical longer than Kevin Keegans I'm back to rant and rave about Huddersfield Town. I the meantime an awful lot of things have gone on at the Galpharm, and as I write this now 'Thimon Gwayson is the new Town chief, and Lee Clark is being touted as the next Mourinho.

Firstly, I'll start with my views on Lee Clark, and his somewhat shock sacking last Wednesday! I'd like to state that I am fully behind the decision of Hoyle to sack the geordie and get someone else in, however I must say I was shocked that it happened when it did. At Meadow lane was the first time I began to hear genuine unrest amongst fans towards the manager. As those of you who follow me on twitter will know (@TerrierBlog) I was informed by a gentleman in the toilets at half-time, that Clark was on his last legs and that O'Driscoll was the man to lead us to promotion. Unfortunately my rest-room confidante was not 100% right, but this signalled to me the beginning of the decline for Clarky. As we all know Lee spent an awful lot of money, at times looked out of his depth, and tactically inept. I did expect his sacking to come at the end of the season, after what I imagine would have been another unsuccessful promotion campaign. Fortunately in my opinion, Dean Hoyle spotted the potential for failure and acted quickly to change things, hopefully for the better.

Now onto the new manager, Simon Grayson from our arch-rival Leeds United, not for me my first choice, but still a very good manager. Myself, like many Town fans was hoping for Neil Warnock to come in, however it seems we were beaten by that shady fellow from up the road. However many people dislike Grayson for his Leeds United connections, need to embrace him, set aside their gripes and get behind the team and the manager for the crucial run-in. As we have all seen, Grayson masterminded the first cautionary steps of Blackpool into the big time. He was backed quite well by the owners of Blackpool, invested his money wisely and took a relegation threatened team into the Championship. On the way he employed a very entertaining style of football, based on hard-work and organisation but also combined with pragmatic attacking which led to a flurry of goals. Then, he took the reigns at Leeds and managed to do what previous regimes had failed to do, get a big team with high expectations out of league 1 (see the parallels?). Last season Leeds came close to the play-offs with limited funds, and looked well set to at least equal that this season. Along the way he masterminded some fantastic, entertaining results and brought the spotlight to Bell-end road with a few cup runs, and that huge victory at Old Trafford.

Although he did seem to tail off towards the end of his career with the whites, conceding bucket loads of goals and suffering embarrassing defeats, it's clear there was something sinister at play...Ken Bates anyone? I think if he can emulate even 70% of his past success then we will be very well placed to achieve promotion, hopefully this season and if not the next. I lost the belief at Old Trafford, although it came back in patches throughout the season I don't think I'd ever have had that belief under Clark, but it's back now.

#believe