Next Up: Huddersfield Town vs Exeter City
City’s unbeaten run came to an abrupt end with a poor first half against Reading, and face a tough trip to one of the promotion favourites on Saturday in the first of three matches in a week in three different competitions. Gary Caldwell went with a different formation on Tuesday night, but may revert to his favoured back three. Josh Magennis will expect to return to the starting line-up in place of Sonny Cox, while Kamari Doyle and Millenic Alli may also return. Caleb Watts is available again following his suspension, while there is also good news on the injury front with the likes of Reece Cole and Demetri Mitchell slated for a return in the upcoming EFL Trophy match.
Having recently had a spell in the Premier League, Huddersfield’s relegation to the third tier last season was perhaps one of the surprises of the Championship, and the Terriers will, like Birmingham, be expecting to bounce back as soon as possible. Michael Duff has been brought in to achieve this, and his side seems to have recovered its form after a horror show that saw them lose seven in eight in all competitions. Huddersfield are now unbeaten in their last four matches (three league, one EFL Trophy) including a 0-0 draw at much-fancied Wrexham on Tuesday night. Summer signings included Antony Evans from Bristol Rovers and Freddie Ladapo from Ipswich, but the top scorer is Josh Koroma with five, although he hasn’t featured in nearly a month as Huddersfield have used 26 players so far in league fixtures.
When the sides were both in League One previously, the gulf in quality between the sides was most evident in City’s relegation season of 2011/12 with Huddersfield cruising to the points in both fixtures. City’s trip up to West Yorkshire resulted in a 2-0 defeat (McCombe and Jordan Rhodes) following a 0-4 home reverse (Lee and a Rhodes hat-trick). Those wins opened up a gap in league head to heads with eleven wins to City’s eight, five matches finishing level.
The match officials for this game will be:-
Referee: Elliot Bell
Assistant Referees: Bradley Hall and Danny Jarvis
Fourth Official : Martin Coy
Elliott Bell from Bootle is relatively new League refereeing and therefore has not refereed Exeter or Huddersfield. The last two seasons he has taken charge of National Conference games and some EFL games. He’s now taken charge of 14 games, showing 52 yellow cards and just the one red card.
Pre-match interview with Ilmari Niskanen