Huddersfield Town have enjoyed a much better start to the season than many expected at the start of the campaign with the Terriers establishing themselves in the bunch of teams chasing the play-offs. 

Carlos Corberan has managed to guide his side to seven wins from their opening 17 Championship matches and that sees them currently occupying 8th spot in the table. 

The Terriers are only a point off sixth-placed QPR and if they can keep to within that sort of range of the top-six then there is a chance they could defy the odds and sneak in there.

The January transfer window could well be crucial to any ambitions that the Terriers have to challenge for a place in the play-off places this season. One or two quality additions in the winter window could well make all the difference for the Terriers and give that extra bit of quality to finish ahead of teams in and around them. 

However, it is also important that Huddersfield make smart decisions in January in terms of the players that they allow to leave the club. Given their strong start to the season, they could receive transfer interest in some of their key performers from elsewhere.

With that in mind, we take a look at TWO Huddersfield players that might emerge on the radar of other clubs in the winter window and could be sold or loaned out…

Lewis O’Brien

After keeping hold of Lewis O’Brien in the summer despite very strong interest from Leeds United, some Huddersfield fans might have felt that the saga around his future was finally ended when he put pen to paper on a new deal that keeps him tied to the club until 2025.

However, a recent report from The Sun (07/11/21, pg. 59) that the Terriers could potentially still allow the midfielder to leave the club during the transfer window for a fee of around £10 million. That comes with news emerging over some financial difficulties affecting some of Phil Hodgkinson’s other businesses at the moment. 

Huddersfield did turn down a bid totaling £13 million from Leeds for O’Brien in the summer as revealed by Hodgkinson. However, they turned that offer down not because it did not meet their valuation, but because of the structure of the payments that the Premier League side were offering. 

Therefore, if Leeds offered a better kind of deal that suited the Terriers more in January then there is still a chance that despite signing a new deal, O’Brien could yet leave the club.

 

 

Reece Brown

So far this season Reece Brown has endured a difficult time of it trying to force his way into Corberan’s side in the Championship. Despite appearing on the bench at times, the midfielder is yet to make a single appearance for the Terriers this term in the league.

Brown was only signed by Huddersfield at the start of last term, but he was sent out on loan to Peterborough United in League One for most of the campaign. During that loan spell, he managed to play an important role in helping Posh secure promotion to the Championship with him scoring two goals and providing two assists in 38 league appearances

The likes of Alex Vallejo, Jonathan Hogg, Scott High, Lewis O’Brien and Duane Holmes at the moment are all ahead of Brown in the pecking order at Huddersfield. Therefore, it is unlikely that he will suddenly be able to establish himself as a key player for the Terriers in the second half of the season. 

Another loan deal might be what is needed for him to get some game time under his belt and then Huddersfield could assess his long-term future in the summer.