Huddersfield Town are looking for their first points of the 2022/23 campaign when they head to St Andrew’s to take on Birmingham City this evening.
Danny Schofield’s side were schooled by Burnley for large parts of last Friday’s meeting int West Yorkshire, as Huddersfield fell to a 1-0 defeat thanks to Ian Maatsen’s first-half goal.
A narrow scoreline wasn’t really a reflection of the game, with Huddersfield fortunate to not find themselves two or three behind at the break. There was an improved second-half performance and that’s got to be the minimum effort tonight at Birmingham.
We’ve taken that improved second-half performance into our thinking for this weekend’s predicted line-up, with Schofield likely to make a couple of attacking changes.
We start with the defensive unit, though, which could well be unchanged.
Lee Nicholls will be in goal, whilst Tom Lees and Rarmani Edmonds-Green may be given the nod again at centre-back, with Matty Pearson a long-term absentee and Yuta Nakayama still adapting. There’s also Will Boyle, but Edmonds-Green was actually one of Town’s better performers last weekend.
In terms of the full-backs, both were fairly flat last week against Burnley. However, they can probably expect to keep their place in the side, with the changes coming further forward.
One of which is Jon Russell dropping out of the side, with his role alongside Jonathan Hogg a painful watch against Burnley. Right now, if you had to pick one, it’d be Hogg. We’ve got Duane Holmes dropping deeper alongside him to provide some much-needed energy in this 4-2-3-1.
Coming into the side are Jack Rudoni and Tino Anjorin - two players that made an impact on the performance against Burnley from the bench. They replace Russell and the disappointing Josh Koroma.
Sorba Thomas will get another crack on the right, whilst Danny Ward should lead the line ahead of Jordan Rhodes, with the hope that the attacking midfielders behind him can provide a touch more ammunition.