Huddersfield Town wrapped up the Championship season over the weekend with a 2-2 draw with Reading FC at the Madejski Stadium.

Carlos Corberan’s side have had a tough second-half to the campaign, with victories hard to come by and Huddersfield basically falling over the line in the race for survival.

Now the season has ended and Huddersfield know they are preparing for another year in the Championship, plans will have to be in place to make sure that the coming season is more of a success.

Key to that is going to be the club’s recruitment, which has to be right and a lot better than it has been in the past.

With that in mind, we opt to take a look at 10 real transfer shockers that Huddersfield have had over the years that will have to be avoided again this coming summer.

We start with a player that’s going to be fresh in the memory of Huddersfield supporters.

Diakhaby signed for a reported fee of £9m but he never did anything to suggest he was worth anything near that fee before leaving the club earlier in 2021.

The 24-year-old registered only three assists across two seasons in the Championship and was even shipped out on loan to Nottingham Forest.

Simply, Huddersfield cannot afford to spend anywhere near the money they did on Diakhaby this summer, with the cash that goes out on players needing to be safely invested in the right man.

Pritchard is expected to be a player leaving Huddersfield this summer as a free agent, with his contract running down and seemingly little desire to trigger the 12-month option that sits on it.

Like Diakhaby, he’s been an expensive addition at the John Smith’s Stadium, but he’s not had the desired impact.

In fairness to Pritchard, the money spent on him didn’t seem the worst idea in the world given his pedigree and previous outings elsewhere. However, he hasn’t looked a £10m player at all.

Huddersfield can’t afford to get the wrong man in to replace him this coming summer. 

Niasse is maybe a harsh inclusion given the fact that he’s not actually featured for Huddersfield yet since signing.

However, after a scattergun approach to sign a striker in the January transfer window of 2020/21, Huddersfield turned to the free agent market, signing Yaya Sanogo and Niasse.

Sanogo had an impact, but Niasse injured his groin in a freak training game incident, which ruled him out for the season.

Ultimately, it was an agreement with Niasse that proved to be a waste of time. That’s not exactly Huddersfield’s fault, though, as the club took time before awarding the free agent a deal.

They can’t afford similar mistakes in the summer, though.

Puncheon was well travelled before he eventually made his way to Huddersfield in the Janaury transfer window of 2019.

At that point, Puncheon was fresh out of Crystal Palace, who he had made over 100 appearances for in the league and done really well.

He couldn’t inject much into Huddersfield’s fight for survival in the Premier League, though, making only five league starts and a further appearance from the bench.

It was a disappointing transfer and one that the Terriers will be keen to avoid repeating with the spotlight on the recruitment team heading into the summer transfer window. 

Sobhi’s name crops up whenever you talk about Huddersfield’s past failings in the transfer window.

Arriving from Stoke City in the summer of 2018, Sobhi cost the Terriers a reported fee of over £5m, which proved to be a serious error of judgement.

The midfielder featured on only four occasions in the Premier League for Huddersfield and had little impact for the Yorkshire outfit.

A player that had little impact at Huddersfield, but cost them a significant fee, it’s going to be one deal that the club will really want to avoid repeating in the coming summer. 

Again, we look back on Huddersfield’s poor recruitment when they were a Premier League side and identify Sabiri.

It’s not exactly rocket science that Huddersfield need to avoid a repeat of these mistakes, including Sabiri.

The midfielder arrived from Nuremberg in the summer of 2017 and made just 13 appearances for the Terriers over the course of his time with the club.

He would then move on to SC Paderborn, where his career continued to not hit the heights expected.

Again, it goes without saying that Huddersfield need a better success rate when it comes to signings in the summer.

The 2016//17 campaign was memorable for many reasons at the John Smith’s Stadium, with a really likeable Huddersfield squad winning promotion to the Premier League.

However, one signing that failed to make any sort of impact was Paurevic.

He stepped off the bench in an early season win over Brentford, before doing the same in the League Cup against Shrewsbury Town, when he also received a yellow card.

That was to be it for the midfielder’s involvement at Huddersfield, with his signing proving to be quite the waste of time.

That was a little bit irrelevant as Huddersfield stunned the Championship and one promotion.

Before we get into Ince, he wasn’t a bad addition to the Huddersfield squad and was a player that was more than capable of playing in the Premier League.

However, when you look at the fact that the winger scored just twice in the Premier League after his £10m arrival from Derby County, it proved to be not the deal that Huddersfield expected or needed.

Ince’s departure to Stoke saw Huddersfield actually recoup what they spent, which papers over the cracks of this transfer.

That’s a rarity, though, which is something that Huddersfield will want to avoid running the risk with again.

We take this article in a different direction by focusing on Joe Lolley’s move to Nottingham Forest.

Huddersfield received an ‘attractive offer’ from the Reds for the service of Lolley, but his exit might now twinge with some regret.

It’s worth noting that Lolley was hardly prolific for Huddersfield, but since his departure, he’s scored 24 goals in the Championship and matched that number in terms of assists.

Huddersfield’s short-sightedness in moving on the 28-year-old has denied them the chance to have him on board in the Championship, which is probably something of a regret.

Finally, we look at Aarons, who was eventually signed by Huddersfield in the January transfer window.

Aarons has struggled since signing due to injury, but he’s still got the potential to be a success.

We include him here, though, because Huddersfield will want to avoid a similar situation to the one that surrounded him back in the summer.

Carlos Corberan should have landed his signing right at the start of the 2020/21 season, but Huddersfield weren’t quick enough to submit the right paperwork and then had to wait until January to complete the signing, robbing themselves of a very good outlet on the wing.

Huddersfield can’t afford those mistakes in the summer. They have to get business done early.