Young Terriers travel to LFC Academy
- Young Terriers to face Liverpool
- Takes place on Saturday 14 November 2020; 11.30am KO
- Follow live updates on @htafcacademy
Huddersfield Town’s Young Terriers travel to Liverpool this weekend in their latest fixture.
The Academy’s scheduled game against Fleetwood Town has been postponed, leaving an opportunity for the youngsters to take this game against top competition.
Academy Manager, Emyr Humphreys, spoke to htafc.com about how the rearranged match will be beneficial to the team.
“When we reviewed the games programme from last season, one of the key things we wanted to do this season was go up against top teams more often and play the best opposition that we can.
“So far this season we’ve already played Manchester United, Leeds United and Liverpool across the different age groups and they’re good games to assess where our players are at compared to players that are at the top Category One teams.
“It also gives our players the experience they’re going to get when they go into the First Team and we try to recreate that environment as much as we can for them.
“Personally, I much prefer the away games just as a challenge. Everything that’s a part of that – getting up earlier, dealing with no changing rooms at the minute, having to get straight off the bus and play – these are uncomfortable situations for players.
“They’ll be going into an unbelievable training ground and some of the pressure around that, maybe being overwhelmed and working to make sure you don’t go into your shell, it’s all about staying really positive and showing what we can do in tough circumstances.”
The Young Terriers are currently focusing on their ‘fight zones’ in training – the area on the pitch where the team is challenged to win the ball back - and Emyr commented on how they’d apply that to Saturday morning’s game.
“Our aim in these games is to go and give as good as an account of ourselves as we can. We want to go into these clubs and play with no fear and play our own style.
“We’re mainly working on our fight zone and out of possession work at the moment, so we want to go and really aggressively press Liverpool and try and impose ourselves as much as we can on them.
“They’ll be trying to do the opposite and really dominate possession, so it’s a really good test for us.”
The Academy’s latest high-profile match came against Manchester United, who they beat 5-0. Emyr is hopeful that the players will take confidence from that going up against Liverpool.
“The Manchester United match was a really good assessment of where we’re actually at when we go full strength and when we prepare to give a really good account of ourselves. I think they showed against Manchester United what they’re capable of.
“The key now is replicating that more consistently, to go into those big tests with no fear and belief in what we can do and really impose ourselves on the game, that’s what we’ll be looking for.”
You can follow live updates throughout the game on the Academy’s twitter; @htafcacademy.
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