The Skipper looks ahead to Roses encounter
Peter Clarke told htafc.com that he was looking forward to the return of Jordan Rhodes on Tuesday night, but that he wouldn’t be giving him an inch during the 90 minutes.
It is the striker’s first return to Huddersfield since his departure in August and Peter was sure that he would receive a good reception from the Town faithful.
“The majority of the talk ahead of the game will be about the return of Jordan. I’m sure that he will receive a fantastic reception,” said Peter. “He was a brilliant servant for this Club, who scored a lot of important goals. As professionals and friends we wish him all the best, but we hope he leaves on Tuesday night empty handed."
Speaking about what the Scottish international was like in training, Peter said: “He was a very clinical finisher, who knew where the goal was and was very calm when putting the ball away. He has a very happy of knack of scoring goals so we will have to keep an eye on him and mark him tightly. It isn’t all about Jordan, though; they have a lot of good players and we will have to be on top of our game to keep them quiet.”
Ahead of Tuesday night's game, Town sit 7th in the npower Championship with 23 points - a position that Peter is pleased with after 14 games played.
“It has been relatively good start,” he said. “We have gained points against teams we weren’t expected to and slipped up against teams that we maybe shouldn’t have. That is the nature of this division – on any given day any team can beat anyone. If you aren’t right at it you will come up unstuck.”
The Terriers returned to winning ways on the weekend with a narrow victory over Bristol City, a result Simon Grayson recently described as one of the best of the season to date.
“After the two defeats on the road it was very important that we got back to winning ways on Saturday. It certainly wasn’t a pretty spectacle, but as the Manager touched upon you need to be able to win games in a number of different ways. It was a very gritty and workmen like performance with everyone doing their jobs well. When everyone is doing their jobs correctly, we are a hard team to beat.”
Alex Smithies produced a number of saves to preserve the three points on Saturday and Peter praised the performance of the young stopper: “Alex has always been a top, top goalkeeper. He improves with every game and I think the two saves that he made on Saturday were top draw. For large parts of the game he didn’t have much to do and I think that ultimately is the measure of a good ‘keeper. Alex comes up with what is required more often than not.”
