New Head Coach looks ahead to first competitive game in charge
- Carlos Corberán spoke to the media ahead of Rochdale tie
- Head Coach gives an update on his squad ahead of the encounter
- Watch clips from Carlos’ virtual press conference below on #HTTV!
Huddersfield Town Head Coach Carlos Corberán is looking forward to seeing his side in competitive action for the first time against Rochdale on Saturday afternoon.
The Terriers’ 2020/21 campaign gets underway on Saturday 5 September with the visit of the Dale to the John Smith’s Stadium for a Carabao Cup Round One tie; 3pm kick-off.
Ahead of the season opener, Carlos caught up with the media on Friday via his virtual press conference.
Off the back of a shorter pre-season campaign than usual, Town’s new Head Coach is now eagerly anticipating the return of competitive action with tomorrow’s first round tie.
“Tomorrow is the first competitive game and we are looking forward to it. We’re playing in the Carabao Cup, a competition we respect a lot,” he said.
“It’s always exciting to start the real competitions and especially in this cup. In this cup, there’s the 92 highest teams in British football and it’s a very tough competition.”
Pre-season games against Bradford City and Manchester United’s Under-23s have been part of a shorter summer schedule for Carlos’ Terriers in recent weeks.
Despite having less than a month to work with his players in preparation for the new campaign, Town’s Head Coach is confident his side can continue to show the ideas that they have been working on regularly, during the visit of Rochdale.
“We started to work together three-and-a-half weeks ago. You always need a bit of time to develop the ideas that you want to develop in the team.
“But at the same time, I am very positive about the response of the players and how they’ve started to accept some ideas that we want to give to them.
“Our idea tomorrow is to have the performance and to add minutes. We want to start with the ideas we have as a team.”
Tomorrow’s game is also the season opener for Brian Barry-Murphy’s Rochdale side, who make the trip up to West Yorkshire exactly a week before the first game of their Sky Bet League 1 season away to Swindon Town.
Carlos detailed his opinion on tomorrow’s opposition.
“They are going to be looking forward to playing against us and, at the same time, we have the same feeling with them.
“I have a lot of respect for them. I think it’s a very good team, it’s a team that try to attack a lot, it’s a team that always want to have the ball.
“This team is not scared to play. It’s a team that uses one side to attack and one side to defend. It’s a team that try to play good football.
“I think tomorrow is going to be another challenging and another demanding game for us and I think that’s what we need - to continue to be ready to face these types of situations.”
During his virtual press conference on Friday afternoon, Carlos also gave an update on his squad ahead of the competitive opener.
The Spaniard provided some positive team news going into Saturday’s game and with it hinted at the return of several members of his squad for the game against the Dale.
“We have an improvement from the last friendly game. Tomorrow we’re only going to have Matty Daly as a (newly) injured player because he has a little bit of a muscle problem.
“All of the other players are going to be available. We are going to recover some players who didn’t play any friendly games like (Jonathan) Hogg and (Christopher) Schindler.
“We are going to give some minutes too that haven’t played any minutes with us either like Adama Diakhaby and Isaac Mbenza.
“These are going to be the players involved with the team tomorrow.”
Carlos also clarified that, amid interest from other clubs, Karlan Grant and Steve Mounié will not be involved on Saturday.
“They continue to train with us, but tomorrow I want to give more minutes to players I think will be in the squad for the year.”
Watch clips from Carlos’ virtual press conference below on #HTTV!
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