Huddersfield Town A.F.C
Nickname – The Terriers
Best PL Finish – 16th (2017/18)
Despite a rich history including three top-flight titles and an FA Cup, it was a huge shock when Huddersfield won promotion to the Premier League through the playoffs in 2017.
Having previously dropped out of the top-flight in 1972, The subsequent 35 years saw Huddersfield drop to the third and fourth tiers for the first times in their history, ultimately spending most of their time in Division Three (now League 1).
The Terriers have been in League 2 as recently as 2004 but have been steadily rebuilding since. Their 2016/17 promotion from the Championship was their fifth consecutive season in the second tier.
Fans and pundits alike had Huddersfield as overwhelming favourites to be relegated in their first season in the Premier League, but David Wagner’s side defied the odds to clinch survival with games to spare.
The dreaded second season syndrome seems to have hit however, with the Terriers performing how many expected them to last term.
Top 5 Record Transfer Fees (as of 04/02/19):
- Terence Kongolo – £17.5 million* (from Monaco – June 2018)
- Steve Mounie – £11.44 million** (from Montpellier – July 2017)
- Alex Pritchard – £11 million*** (from Norwich – January 2018)
- Thomas Ince – £8.5 million**** (from Derby – July 2017)
- Aaron Mooy***** – £8 million (from Manchester City – June 2017)
*Fee officially undisclosed but believed to be £17.5 million (Sky Sports).
**Fee officially undisclosed but claimed to be €13 million (£11.44 million at the time of the transfer) (Montpellier Club Chairman).
***Fee officially undisclosed. Believed by Sky Sports to be in the region of £12 million, but the transfer was never described to be their transfer record. The Guardian describes the sale’s value at £11 million.
****Fee officially undisclosed but believed to be £8.5 million potentially rising to £11 million with add-ons (Sky Sports).
*****Adama Diakhaby’s transfer from Monaco in July 2018 is rumoured to have been worth £9 million, but no reputable source can be found.
(Figures include initial fees in GBP at the time of the transfer, as reported by the BBC unless specified otherwise)
Biggest Flop – Ramadan Sobhi
The Terriers have splashed the cash since their promotion to the Premier League, with many successful signings contributing to their Premier League survival. Unfortunately, many signings have also proved to be flops.
The biggest of these flops will be entirely subjective, but three stuck out while I was shortlisting; Tom Ince, Adama Diakhaby and Ramadan Sobhi.
You may be forgiven for forgetting Ince ever played for Huddersfield if you live outside West Yorkshire. Indeed, despite playing 33 games in the Premier League last season, Ince scored just 2 goals and was largely invisible, moving on to Stoke in the Championship in the summer.
Diakhaby and Sobhi both signed this summer, and both have failed miserably to live up to expectations.
Picking the biggest flop of these is a tough job, but I’m going for Sobhi.
Ince, though utterly uninspiring at Premier League level, did contribute to Huddersfield’s survival last season. Diakhaby, though more expensive (apparently) than Sobhi, has played more and shown determination to fight for his place.
Sobhi played just three games since his £5.7 million move. His 75 minutes of league football have cost Huddersfield £76,000 per minute he has played. Flop.
Biggest Bargain – Jordan Rhodes
Die-hard Terriers fans will remember this well. In the summer of 2009 Huddersfield signed a little known 19-year-old striker from Ipswich for a fee in the region of £150,000 plus add ons.
He was an instant success, scoring 85 goals in 146 appearances over the next three seasons as he fired the Terriers to the Championship.
He didn’t stay long though, and recently relegated Blackburn Rovers made him the most expensive English domestic transfer outside of the Premier League at the time, with a fee of £8 million.
Rhodes was instrumental in securing promotion, and his value increased by over 5,000%. That is a bargain.
Records & Trivia
- Including this January window, Huddersfield’s top 14 signings have all been made in the last four transfer windows.
- Since manager David Wagner’s arrival in 2016, Huddersfield have signed 10 players from German clubs.
- The Terriers went 17 years without signing someone for a fee of £1 million or more, between the signings of Marcus Stewart in 1996 and Nahki Wells in 2014, both of whom were club record signings.
- As of January 5th 2018, there are six Englishmen in Huddersfield’s first team squad. At the start of the 2015/16 season, there were only seven non-Englishmen in their squad.
- Club captain Tommy Smith is the only academy product in Huddersfield’s first team squad to have made an appearance for the club.
