Birmingham City must be alert to the danger Huddersfield Town pose from set-pieces when they take on the Terriers in Saturday’s Championship relegation showdown.
Blues go to the John Smith’s Stadium looking for just their fourth away win of the season and knowing if they can find it they will relegate the Terriers and take their own battle for safety to the final day.
They also go having conceded only three goals in their last five games – and two of those were to champions elect Leicester City – but knowing they need to attack better than they did in last weekend’s deflating 0-0 draw with Rotherham United.
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Fortunately for them, Huddersfield can definitely be got at – but they can also be a threat from corners and free kicks. We spoke to Terriers writer Steven Chicken who assessed their strengths and weaknesses when he appeared on our Keep Right On podcast, starting with a surprising statistic.
“Set pieces have been one of their strengths in the past few years. Sorba Thomas is exceptional on set pieces, his numbers are really, really impressive and so many of their goals this season have come from his set pieces – as has been the case since he's come into the team in 2021.
“He doesn't nail all of them, there'll always be a couple every game where he puts it straight out from a corner or hits the first man but when he gets it right they're absolutely spot on.
“It says it all that their top scorer this season is Michal Helik with nine goals. He's a centre back. I think Thomas' set pieces have been worth about 12 or 15 points this season. They are one of the few stats where Huddersfield rank among the top teams, they’ve scored 13 from set pieces, only five teams have scored more from from dead balls.
“But they're not really good defending them, they're pretty average at defending them, to be honest.”
And Steven adds that Town have other defensive issues. “I love Matty Pearson, he is a very talented centre back but he's been forced to play at full back because of injuries and preference – and he has struggled a little bit in a couple of recent games.
“There's definitely ways to get at them, they give teams so many tap ins, they concede the same goal so many times – even since André Breitenreiter has come in – which has driven him mad. If you can get in behind the full backs and cut it back from the byline, some of the centre backs positionally switch off.
“But I think more than anything, it's just resist them because they don't offer a lot in attack. If you can hold Huddersfield off and stop them from scoring, which most teams have found to be not enormously difficult, or if they do score they don't score more than one, and then if you can just hit back at them, you know they're going to punch themselves out in the end.”
