Last season, Huddersfield Town were punching above their weight in the Premier League

It’s exactly a year since Huddersfield Town’s desperate search for income saw them become a prop for a Paddy Power’s ‘Save our Shirt’ prank. 

As yet, there is no evidence that the bookmaker will be hanging around for a long haul which will almost certainly see Carlos Corberan, the Leeds United assistant and under-23s manager, asked to turn things around.

The club, who little more than a year ago were drawing 1-1 against Manchester United in the Premier League, could be genuinely sponsor-less next season. 

Aaron Mooy who used to play for Huddersfield Town adjust his shirt with the Paddy Power logo

Aaron Mooy who used to play for Huddersfield Town adjust his shirt with the Paddy Power logo

Carlos Corberan, the Leeds United assistant and under-23s coach, is set to be their new boss

Carlos Corberan, the Leeds United assistant and under-23s coach, is set to be their new boss

They have subsequently had new owners, sacked two managers and averaged little more than a point a game. Only a superior goal difference protects them from the threat of relegation to League One before Wednesday night’s match at Millwall.

It’s all more evidence of the jeopardy facing the mill town sides who reach the top flight, jet-propelled on the dreams and money of local businessman. 

For Dave Whelan, Eddie Davies and Jack Walker read Dean Hoyle, another entrepreneur with a fierce sense of his own place. He had the vision to take Huddersfield up and embed the philosophy of what in marketing speak they call a ‘challenger brand’: a spiky, defiant, biting-at-heels business, appropriate for a club called The Terriers.

Just over a year ago the Terriers drew 1-1 against Manchester United in the Premier League

Just over a year ago the Terriers drew 1-1 against Manchester United in the Premier League

But multi-millionaires aren’t exactly queuing up to take these clubs on. Hoyle sold a 75 per cent stake to legal services entrepreneur Phil Hodgkinson, who immediately announced that the club’s first £50m Premier League parachute payment had already gone. The club’s financial results, published in March, revealed why.

They showed how the club must now begin re-paying Hoyle the £45m he invested, with the first of four instalments – a £15m hit – falling due next month. They detailed a new £31m bank loan, to be repaid within one to two years.

Hodgkinson does not have Hoyle’s deep pockets and with £60m debt repayable in the short-term, the club have done what all do when the Premier League cash line has gone and results are still poor. Look for a new manager who can deliver more with far, far less.

Only a superior goal difference protects them from the threat of relegation to League One

Only a superior goal difference protects them from the threat of relegation to League One

Securing Danny Cowley and his brother Nicky entailed paying a substantial compensation payment to Lincoln City. There were bumps in the road: two 5-2 defeats in the space of 31 days. But the brothers kept the club in the Championship and the timing of their sacking after the best win of the season, at home to West Bromwich Albion, was unexpected. Many fans were baffled.

Some players are thought to have found the Cowley regime demanding and not all took to it, though the pair were committed to the club and are understood to be deeply disappointed not to have been kept on.

But the key contributory factor is the club’s wish to maintain control over the kind of players they buy, rather than cede more of that power to the Cowleys, who had spoken of their wish ‘to be the managers, as opposed to head coach’ and ‘to have control over recruitment.’ Significantly, Corberan will be ‘head coach’ and not ‘manager’, if the final negotiations are successful.

Dean Hoyle sold a 75 per cent stake in the club to legal services entrepreneur Phil Hodgkinson

Dean Hoyle sold a 75 per cent stake in the club to legal services entrepreneur Phil Hodgkinson

The arrival in January of Mark Devlin as Huddersfield chief executive is a significant part of this narrative. Devlin was a key part of the Brentford mission to build a competitive side by using metrics as a key part of the player acquisition process and making young talent fundamental to the team’s evolution.

Huddersfield won’t be run on the same scale of metrics but the broader Brentford philosophy will apply. Success, Devlin said while at that club, entailed a willingness to ‘think a bit differently and take risks’. 

‘Some work, some don’t but that goes with the territory.’ Brentford’s risks included controversially dispensing with their academy, focussing investment instead on one age group, 17-21, and working with a smaller number who have got a chance when training alongside the first team.

Phil Hodgkinson announced that the club’s first £50m parachute payment had already gone

Phil Hodgkinson announced that the club’s first £50m parachute payment had already gone

Huddersfield dispensed with their own young academy age groups while still in the Premier League – though the club’s midfielders Scott High and Lewis O’Brien are both proof that they can yield results. 

The future will entail something more progressive than the old routine of a new manager arriving and dictating investment in players which a club must shift on when that manager has gone.

There’s a bitter irony about Huddersfield, who in their Premier League years gleefully proclaimed themselves as Yorkshire’s Premier League Club, turning to their rivals’ assistant coach just as that club head back into the top flight. 

Securing Danny Cowley and his brother Nicky entailed paying a substantial compensation

Securing Danny Cowley and his brother Nicky entailed paying a substantial compensation

But Huddersfield cannot be accused of lacking boldness and vision in recruiting Corberan, who impressed Bielsa and has developed a number of young players who have broken through into the Elland Road first team.

Devlin has spoken in recent weeks of a new post-pandemic reality for football below the Premier League: a need for club to re-examine their cost base and wages. ‘It’s going to be a soft period for two seasons until clubs find their feet again and get some money back into the system.’

Though Corberan feels like a gamble, the same could be said of David Wagner’s arrival in 2015. The conventional methods were getting Huddersfield nowhere. The new world order needs new methods.

The Cowley's kept the club in the division and the timing of their sacking was unexpected

The Cowley’s kept the club in the division and the timing of their sacking was unexpected

source: dailymail.co.uk