The data corroborate the idea that the Terriers’ overall play is not as poor as their league position suggests…with the exception of a number of fixable flaws.
With five Championship games in the books, we thought it was time to take a look at the statistics to see what they tell us about how the Terriers are performing and what kind of trajectory they might be on in the near future.
And, believe it or not, we’ve learned very nothing about Huddersfield Town from simply watching them play this season. Nonetheless, it’s always a good idea to get these things confirmed: it’s easy to lose track of what other teams are doing and how it compares to divisional opponents.
We were able to dive around in the numbers using FBRef data to uncover a few specific strengths for Town to focus on and a few flaws for Neil Warnock to solve. If they can achieve that, they should be on track for a very easy season – but things are rarely that simple, are they?
Strength: Keeping the opponent at arm’s length.
This may seem an odd place to begin for one of the division’s leakiest defenses so far this season, but don’t worry, we’ll get to the reasons for that shortly. In general, the stats imply that Town are doing a good job of reducing the amount of times the opposition penned back.
In comparison to other Championship clubs, Town’s opponents have had the eighth-fewest touches in the Town box and the eighth-fewest touches in the Town third. In the meantime, Town’s opponents have had the most touches in their own box and the second-most in their own defensive third.
Much of that may be due to their opponents – Leicester, Plymouth, West Brom, and especially Norwich all try to build from the back at the best of times – but Town are consistently mid-table or higher on pretty much all defensive action stats: tackles, interceptions, blocks, and so on. Jonathan Hogg is among the top players in the division in various categories.
That shows, as the eye test already says, a desire to do the work: they’ve recovered the third-most loose balls of any team, and are generally good at preventing opponents from completing progressive passes.
Weakness: Giving up too many good chances due to individual mistakes.
Unfortunately, despite Town’s ability to keep opponents out of their penalty box, the opportunities they do concede are usually real humdingers.
When you look at the numbers, you wonder if Town have simply been unlucky: 44% of the shots they’ve conceded have been on target, comfortably the highest in the division and forcing Lee Nicholls to make the second-most saves in the Championship this season, trailing only QPR’s Asmir Begovic.
But, as it turns out, this isn’t a coincidence: as we’ve established, Town don’t give up a lot of opportunities each game in terms of pure quantities of shots; they’re about average in that regard. However, they boast the division’s second-highest expected goals (xG) against, which indicates the chances they allow the opponent to have are very, very easy.
Again, we know intuitively that the self-destructive blunders they’ve made this season are to blame for a lot of their problems. Another factor is that, while Warnock’s team is good at pushing opponents away from their own goal, they can also press high enough up the pitch that any breach can turn into a big chance for the opposition.
Despite his errors this season, Lee Nicholls comes out looking relatively well in the stats, save a lot of chances that should have gone in – most of them against Middlesbrough.
Strength: Moving ahead and creating opportunities (particularly from set pieces).
Only eight teams have had more touches inside the opposing box than Town, who have the 15th-best non-penalty record in the league – not spectacular, but significantly better than their present league position would imply. It’s more than just Leicester and Preston.
We’re not sure how to interpret the fact that they make the most crosses of any Championship team, with Sorba Thomas, of course, attempting the most. On the one hand, it indicates the amount of land they’re gaining; on the other hand, it doesn’t appear to be producing very high-quality opportunities for them yet.
They are, though, finding teammates well from set pieces. Despite attempting the second-fewest such passes in the league, Town have created more shots through dead ball passes (free kicks, corners, throw-ins, etc.) than any other team save Norwich City. Michal Helik has profited the most from this, since he has the greatest individual xG of any Town player (1.4).
Weak point: Finishing
Despite this, Town has the division’s second-fewest goals (4). With the exception of their own goal against Middlesbrough, they’ve scored less than half as many goals as you’d expect (xG of 6.3).
As always, the gap between the number of chances created and the number of goals scored comes down to two factors: finishing and goalkeeping. We’re more concerned with finishing than goalkeeping, albeit Norwich’s Angus Gunn had a particularly strong performance against Town.
behind all, Town have the league’s third-worst shot-on-target rate (behind Stoke and Bristol City): a pitiful 22.4%. Only Middlesbrough behind them in terms of goals per shot and goals per shot on target.
Danny Ward has been the most wasteful, failing to connect despite an xG of 1.3 – but he is far from alone. That lack of finishing is a theme throughout the team: Josh Koroma has no goals from an xG of 0.7, Brahima Diarra has none from 0.6, Helik and Matty Pearson are both 0.4 off, and Pat Jones is 0.3 off. Simply put, the stats confirm what we’ve all seen: Town’s collective failure to capitalize on opportunities.
Hopefully, the West Brom game indicates that is changing: Jack Rudoni (+0.3) and Delano Burgzorg (+0.9) are currently both outperforming their projected goals after scoring at the Hawthorns.
Weakness: Keeping hold of the ball
Again, some of what the data suggest is as much stylistic as it is damning: Town, for example, try the fewest short passes in the Championship, thus they are inherently more prone to give it away. But Warnock has shown his anger on several occasions, and with reason: Town have the league’s second-worst pass completion rate, trailing only Rotherham.
Strangely, Town have been tackled the fewest times this season (25 times), partly because they try to run at opponents so infrequently (only Sheffield Wednesday try fewer)…again, it’s a style thing, because Town primarily try to play on the counter, and if you do that right, you don’t have to take opponents on: you just run into the vast expanses of green ahead of you.
Despite this, Town are far too eager to perform the opposition’s job for them, miscontrolling the ball more frequently (per touch) than any other team save Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham.
We have plenty of positive things to say about the talented teenager, but we have to admit that a large portion of the problem can be attributed to Brahima Diarra, who has miscontrolled the ball the most in the Championship this season (18 times). That’s quite typical for strikers due to their special risk/reward ratio and the amount of pressure they’re normally under – only behind Diarra is Will Keane, the leading scorer for table-topping Preston – but not for midfielders, even extremely offensive ones, like Diarra.
Warnock will be hoping that having Ben Wiles in midfield instead will provide a little more assurance on the ball, while fellow newcomer Delano Burgzorg is proving handy with his hold-up duties. If they can find it, it should not only aid in the attack, but also prevent Town from being counterattack on so badly.
