Huddersfield Town’s manager history a concern for Martin Drury as ‘not right way’ point made

Drury is the 10th person in charge in four years

New Huddersfield Town boss Martin Drury hopes the club have learned that having a high turnover of managers is “not the right way to be successful”.

Drury was appointed as Town’s latest head coach last week, becoming the tenth person in permanent charge since 2022.

The frequent changing of managers has coincided with a disappointing few seasons on the pitch, with Town relegated from the Championship in 2024 and missing out on promotion from League One in the following two campaigns.

The 40-year-old admitted to having “some scepticism” about taking the job due to that high turnover, and discussing the point, the new boss said: “Over the last few years, I think that’s potentially been a little bit of something that’s hindered the club, in terms of ‘the next manager’s the messiah, and he’s going to take us forward’, and I don’t think that works in football.

“You need time as an organisation, both as a head coach and the people that are there, to refine the staff, to refine the playing group, and work together in a prolonged period of time.

“You only have to look at who’s just won the Premier League, and how long he’s been in the role, and what it looked like for the first 18 months, but it’s an unbelievable example – I think dozens and dozens of clubs across the country would’ve potentially sacked Mikel Arteta in the first 18 months of his tenure at Arsenal, they’ve just won the Premier League, so if that’s not an example and representation of how you should run an organisation, how you should hold your nerve in certain moments, and trust the process and believe in things, as long as there’s enough evidence there to support that, then I don’t know what is.

“That’s something that hopefully this football club and many football clubs will learn from, because unfortunately we’re in this day and age now where it’s one in one out, and it’s not the right way to be successful, and you end up spending a hell of a lot of money and probably setting yourself back from where you want to be and where you started from.

“Of course hopefully there’ll be more scope for me in this position now (compared to his interim spell), but I’ll be working closely with the people that I’m with every single day, and we’ll be working collaboratively to make sure we get success.”

The Terriers had a two-season spell in the Premier League between 2017 and 2019, while they reached the Championship play-off final in 2022, and Drury added on those successful periods: “We had some post-season reviews with all the staff across every department, which were enlightening and really, really beneficial. I really enjoyed speaking to people that were here when David Wagner was here, when Carlos Corberan was here.

“The way they spoke about what the culture was like and the football club was like at that time, and what it was like to work in, they spoke about it being very challenging, really tough, really demanding, but over time, really respectful, collaborative, everyone working together, and everyone with a common goal.

“For us to get to that stage, we might have to go through some of that that I spoke about there (early bumps in the road), and how other coaches and managers that have been here and got success in the past have created a culture.

“There will be uncomfortable moments for people, because we’re going to try and raise the bar and raise the level, because ultimately we know we need to do that to try and get this club where it wants to be, but that’ll take time, so I think it’s more reintroducing some of the values and the things that this football club stood for in many years gone by, and particularly in the success that they had years ago when they found themselves in the Premier League.”