Lee Grant’s Huddersfield Town ‘faith’ not wavering in the face of tough spell

Huddersfield Town have had an issue scoring goals of late

Huddersfield Town manager Lee Grant insists he has “full faith” in his side to turn around their recent drop off in form in front of goal.

The Terriers scored 23 goals in their opening ten games of the campaign in all competitions, but have struck just three times in their past six matches.

Town have created plenty of goalscoring opportunities in recent weeks, having 64 shots across their last three fixtures, but have been left with little reward for their efforts.

Consequently, the Terriers have won just one of their last six matches in all competitions, and went into the international break off the back of consecutive defeats to Harrogate Town and Stockport County, in the EFL Trophy and League One respectively.

Town will hope that their fortunes in front of goal improve when they return to League One action against Bolton Wanderers on Thursday, and discussing his side’s attacking play at a recent press conference, Grant said: “We’ve made some really good chances. I look at Harrogate, we created some really, really good chances, and Exeter’s the same, we made really good chances.

“I can’t look at those and say these are willy nilly chances or moments, these are bona fide situations in front of goal where individually we would like to execute better than what we have. Because that’s happened at Harrogate, and then it’s happened at Exeter, we certainly have to look at that as a collective.

“Without doubt, we spend time on the training ground to keep pushing that, and keep pursuing where we want to be, and I know that I’ve got players that really want to step up to the mark, and really want to be better in those moments, because it’s what defines all good teams, you’ve got to put the ball in the net.

“Let’s keep fighting for those chances, and keep working. We’re doing some great stuff in terms of chance creation, and I’ve got full faith in the people that we have at that end of the pitch.

“It’s not just those guys either by the way, we’ve missed some really good opportunities from set plays that I can think about in the last couple of weeks that feel like, given the size of the opportunity, we should’ve taken, but it is what it is – I’m certain that we’ll turn that around.”

The Terriers have been addressing another issue in recent weeks, with Town having conceded quickfire goals in defeats at Blackpool and Bradford City earlier in the season.

Discussing their work to eradicate that from their game, Grant added: “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about that, and more so than talking about, we’ve spent a lot of time working on it as well.

“We felt like it was really important to address how we are when we concede, how we are when we start a game really, really well, like we do at Bradford, and find ourselves in a situation where we don’t want to be in – we’ve conceded a goal, right, how do we react?

“We’ve played those scenarios out in training, and that’s not just in the classroom, we’ve played it out on the grass, because I feel like it’s really important for the lads to feel it.

“We’ve got some clarity on those areas now, and I think it’s important. I thought Saturday (at Exeter City) was a really important step – off the back of away performances that we didn’t enjoy particularly, going away to Exeter really showed the lads ‘ah okay, yeah there’s some bits in this that we like, and we can take forward’, and really serves us well.

“That comes off the back of the work that we’ve done post Bradford, so we’re really pleased for the group on that.”