Corberan has to solve away day blues!

THERE aren’t a huge number of ways Huddersfield Town can look to squeeze more points out of the fixture list next season having just finished third with an impressive 82 points, but there was a bit of a trend they will be keen to avoid in the new campaign.

The Terriers will begin their Championship campaign with a tasty home game against Vincent Kompany’s Burnley on Friday, July 29 (kick-off 8pm) live on Sky.

Burnley are back in the second tier after a six-year stint in the Premier League and are now under the management of former Manchester City captain Kompany, who has joined them having been in charge at Anderlecht in Belgium.

Town’s first away game comes the following weekend as they visit Birmingham City, followed by Stoke City at home and back-to-back away trips to another newlyrelegated side in Norwich City and then Coventry City.

The Terriers suffered from travel sickness, though not in the sense of poor away form.

The issue was more that there were several times when they struggled in games immediately following long midweek away trips. Those included defeats in poor performances at home to Middlesbrough having just visited QPR in November, and then again at home to Bournemouth just after losing away to Millwall in midweek. The fixtures for the new season suggest Town will need to find a way to overcome that.

They have 12 three-to-four-day turnarounds after away trips in the new season, nine seven-day turnarounds and one 14-day gap, with the trip to Millwall in midMarch coming on the eve of an international break. That is, presumably, the same as the rest of the Championship.

What may pose particular difficulty for Town, if last season is anything to go by, is just how many of those short breaks between games come after long away trips.

Seven of their nine longest away trips this season will be followed by a game just three or four days later, with Cardiff and Millwall the only ones Town get a decent rest after.

Some are worse than others. It’s not unthinkable that Town might arrange to stay in the area after facing Reading on October 1 given they visit Luton three days later, for instance.

But travelling to Sunderland just three days after playing in Swansea in April – Town’s longest away trip of the season – looks particularly gruelling. It’s important not to overstate the issue, of course. There were occasions last season when Town were perfectly capable of getting results despite having just got back from a road trip at 3am three nights prior.

It’s not ideal, but there’s plenty in football that isn’t, and we suspect every single other club in the division will be looking at certain elements of their fixture lists and going ‘hang on, how come we’re [insert gripe here]?.’

One way they might be able to avoid that issue is through rotation. Head coach Carlos Corberan generally likes to keep his group fairly tight, but if Town can add more new attacking faces, in particular, it could help him to add extra freshness in those moments when the calendar gets congested.

That or add an extra day to the week, we guess!

If Town can add more new attacking faces it could help Corberan to add extra freshness to the side when needed