Huddersfield Town are entering a new era in the Championship in 2022/23, with the campaign just around the corner now and a clash with Burnley little over a week away. 

The big change is that Danny Schofield will be leading the team from the dugout and not Carlos Corberan, who guided Huddersfield to the play-off final last season.

Schofield’s first competitive starting XI is also likely to look a lot different to Corberan’s last, with six of the 11 starters from the clash with Nottingham Forest at Wembley no longer at the club: Naby Sarr, Levi Colwill, Pipa, Danel Sinani, Lewis O’Brien and Harry Toffolo.

So, what does Huddersfield’s strongest starting line-up look like at this stage of pre-season? The truth is, it’s hard to say given the experimental nature of the fixtures and the potential change in system from Schofield.

Looking at the business done so far, though, we are guessing at something of a 4-2-3-1 given the midfield depth and addition of a No.10.

We start with the defence and, as our graphic above shows, there’s some familiar faces in there with Lee Nicholls in goal, Ollie Turton at right-back, alongside a central defence of Matty Pearson and Tom Lees.

Josh Ruffels is an option at left-back (and probably the preferred choice in a wing-back system), yet it could be that Yuta Nakayama gets the nod if it’s a flat back-four for Schofield.

Ahead of that is a double pivot, where you could select two from three of Jonathan Hogg, Jon Russell and David Kasumu.

Quite what Schofield is thinking in this area of the pitch will be interesting to watch develop. Corberan, for example, clearly felt that Hogg and Russell struggled together, which meant Hogg played a lot of football at centre-back after Russell’s emergence last season. Russell was also left out of the play-off final starting line-up.

It could be, then, that it’s one of that pair alongside Kasumu, unless Hogg drops into a back-three.

 

Quiz: Can you identify the 10 fake Huddersfield Town facts?

 

Jack Rudoni should slot in ahead of them, offering the goals from midfield that were missing last season. To get the best out of him, though, you’d imagine Schofield will build an attack around him pulling the strings at No.10.

On the right we will see Sorba Thomas, whilst the left is a little bit tougher to call.

A fully fit and firing Josh Koroma would get the nod, but it’s been a long time since we consistently saw the best of him and the addition of Connor Mahoney suggests Huddersfield felt they needed more on the left.

Mahoney’s ability at set-pieces gets him a start for us, but that’s a close call and could quickly change.

In terms of leading the line and with the squad in the shape it is at the minute, Danny Ward is the obvious selection, giving Town some much-needed consistency after a summer of change.