Andre Breitenreiter explains 'big problems' in Huddersfield Town team ahead of relegation

Huddersfield Town head coach Andre Breitenreiter has expanded on the “big problems in the team” ahead of his side’s impending relegation from the Championship. The Terriers are all but down as they sit three points adrift of fourth-from-bottom Plymouth Argyle with a game to go, but with a goal difference that is 15 worse than the Pilgrims.

Town’s relegation fate is set to be sealed with Saturday's clash at Ipswich Town, where the Terriers will drop into League One for the first time since 2012, while the hosts can secure promotion to the Premier League with a draw. Ahead of his side’s relegation being confirmed, Breitenreiter has explained where he thinks things have gone wrong this season, with the head coach highlighting a lack of unity within the squad in particular.

“I decided for Huddersfield to sign here, but you can be sure when I have known about all the things and the big problems in the team, maybe I [would] have decided another way,” Breitenreiter said at his pre-match press conference. “Because of the good conversations with the owner, with Mark Cartwright, also with Jake Edwards, and also with my connection to Huddersfield Town (he chose to sign). Yesterday I spoke again to Elias Kachunga, and for me there was a special connection.

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“I took the high risk to go to a second league team at the bottom of the table. It was a high risk, but I took the decision for 100 per cent, and now again it was the right decision from me, but I haven’t expected that the problems are so big in the team.

“Now we have to finish the season as good as possible, and then we have to speak openly with those responsible about many things. It’s clear that Town needs a reset start for sure, many things need to change. You need a culture and identity on the pitch, outside the pitch, from the bottom to the top, and these conversations, we hold the next few days after the last game, and then we will see what happens in the future.”

Expanding on the club’s problems, Breitenreiter continued: “I knew about the fitness problem, I’ve heard about the really poor pre-season, where the team trained once per day, and their focus was on playing golf and maybe staying in the pub, and this never leads to success. They trained not enough to play over 90 minutes.

“This is what I heard about from many, many people around the club, from the players, and it’s good to enjoy days off, but when you want to have success, it needs more than that. In my career, when I was successful as a player or especially as a manager, you need one team, you need one group. This is the biggest problem, there is no one group, this is clear, and there are many problems in the team. They don’t accept each other, and I couldn’t handle [it].

“When I think about my mistakes, I’m not responsible for everything, but maybe with the knowledge from today, I should take decisions clear. There were not options at the right moment, but maybe I was too calm for a long time, because normally it leads to success, but there is no one group, and this was the biggest problem.

“When they showed [unity] in the games on the pitch, and they played as a team, we always collected points. We had really some good games, and it was possible to stay in the league, and it was not so difficult. To have success you need one team. Jurgen Klopp said a few weeks ago I think ‘as long as you are not Lionel Messi, you have to defend for the team and you have to work’. We have no player [that has] scored 30 goals and also 30 assists.

“When you have no goals and no assists in the last 15 games, then you should run for your life, for your mates. We had some players also in the last game that didn’t work defensively, and you cannot work with eight players when you are Huddersfield Town to stay in the league, then you don’t deserve. This is the biggest problem, and we couldn’t handle this big problem.”

Despite Breitenreiter having been critical of some of his players’ commitment over the past week, the head coach was keen to point out that there are several others in the squad who he believes have been dedicated to the cause.

“There are also many, many players, because we just speak about the negative ones, we have a lot of players in the squad that gave their best, and react on the things we spoke about,” Breitenreiter added.

“This is my task and my responsibility as a manager, and I have so many positive examples from the past, and also from the last two-and-a-half-months, that the players are happy to get new information to make the next step to improve. This is my job, and I always will help players.

“Here we have a lot of good characters, but they felt alone sometimes because of injuries of important leaders, like Michal Helik for a long time, Jonathan Hogg, then Tom Lees. Then the other group maybe was too big to handle the whole group.

“When I spoke earlier about the atmosphere at the beginning of the week, I thought we celebrated promotion to be honest. It’s not me, it’s not my mentality. I was sad, I was frustrated two days after the game on Saturday, and also some players felt the same way, but not the whole squad, and then you can see the true characters.

“I never want to speak about individual names, it’s not the [right] thing, but I want to tell you the things we realised, and there are really a lot of players with their heart on the right place, and these are the players [that] have to get the new chance for the reset.”