'No entitlement' - Michael Duff fires League One warning to Huddersfield Town squad

Huddersfield Town head coach Michael Duff is keen to ensure that there is “no entitlement” among his new squad as they look to get promoted back to the Championship at the first attempt.

Town are set to embark on their first League One campaign since 2012 after finishing second from bottom in the second tier last time around, and have been installed as one of the favourites for promotion by the bookies.

The Terriers were a Premier League club as recently as 2019, but had a difficult few seasons after dropping out of the top flight, with the exception of the 2021/22 play-off campaign.

Read more: Michael Duff's first words as Huddersfield Town manager as grand plan laid out

Having endured their second relegation in six seasons, Duff insists his new side have no divine right to make an immediate return to the Championship, with the head coach pointing to several examples where clubs have struggled to get out of the third tier.

Assessing the differences between the two divisions, Duff said: “I think physicality’s a lot of it, I think [that is] the one thing in the Championship [compared] to League One, and there’s leagues within leagues in this one.

“In the Championship, other than the parachute payment teams, who’s the small team in the league? Whereas in this league, there are big, big boys, of which we are one of them, and there are smaller ones, who have got completely different objectives.

“In the Championship, I’d imagine there’d be 18 teams thinking they can get in the play-offs at the start of the season. It’s not like that in this league, but there’ll still be ten teams thinking they can get in the top six, and there’ll always be a surprise package, because there always is.

“It’s making sure the players [are made] aware that just because we play in a big stadium, and it’ll be in front of a big crowd, there’s no entitlement. They’ll get told that, because I’ve seen it.

“It took Sunderland two or three years, it took Derby a couple of years. You look at what Ipswich have just done, but they didn’t get relegated and bounce straight back. They needed that reset, and it doesn’t instantly mean ‘right, you’re going to win the league next year’.

“Make no mistake, that’s what we want to do, but it doesn’t just happen. It’s constant work, and constant application, and building the incremental things to achieve the ultimate success. Talk’s cheap, so we need to make sure that we’re ready to implement all those things.”

In order to make sure his team are capable of challenging for promotion, Duff has vowed to ensure that his side are fundamentally “fit, strong and organised” throughout next season.

The new head coach placed particular emphasis on his side needing to have both physical and mental fitness for the upcoming campaign.

“All my teams have been built on they’re fit, strong and organised. That’s what they (the players) need to understand,” Duff added.

“Yes, you want to play attacking football, you want to get in people’s faces, but the foundations are fit, strong and organised.

“They better come in fit and they will come in fit, and they will be fit by the end of pre-season. That’s not just physically fit, I mean mentally fit. Obviously with the strength and conditioning, all that comes with it, [being] mentally strong, and then organised.

“That’s my job and the coaching staff to make them organised, and then from that platform, you can go and play good football, you can be aggressive in the press, you can get the ball in the box in certain areas of the pitch, but first and foremost, you need to build the foundations, with the team, club, everything.

“It’s happened before, we did it at Barnsley, we managed to tie a club together. It was very similar, there was a disconnect between everything, lots of players wanted to leave and all those sorts of things, but if you can get it going with this football club, this support, the infrastructure, the owner, it’s exciting times.”