The Terriers gaffer confesses his own side will be the underdogs on Saturday afternoon – but he still wants to see them cause the newly-relegated Foxes problems.
Neil Warnock admits it has been challenging to find a flaw in Leicester City’s game ahead of their visit to West Yorkshire this weekend – but he does not want to see any of his players just sit back and take it from the newly-relegated Foxes.
The John Smith’s Stadium will host its first Championship game of the new campaign in Saturday afternoon’s 3pm kick off, but Huddersfield Town are not likely to welcome many stronger sides this season than Enzo Maresca’s expensively-assembled crew.
Nonetheless, Town were able to spring a few surprise results late last season as Warnock inspired them to survive against all odds – including beating Millwall, Middlesbrough, Watford, and Sheffield United – and he wants to see his players take that same kind of spirit into this clash…while cutting out the silly mistakes that cost them so dearly against Plymouth Argyle last weekend.
“I want us to give a good game, a good account of ourselves,” he said. “What you don’t want to do against a team like that is give them a head start, because once they get in front they’re so good. They keep the ball, possession wise, and you can see he’s managed under Pep [Guardiola] – they have similar styles and things. And they’ve got good players, but I’ve got some good players as well.
“So I’m looking forward to competing against them and seeing if we can cause them problems as well. It’ll be a great atmosphere. I suppose that they’ve sold out and I’d be surprised if we don’t.”
He added: “I’ve said to the lads that we’re going to be underdogs in a lot of games, but let’s go and have a go. I was disappointed last week, because of the chances that we had. If we make mistakes like we did last week, we’ll lose to everybody, so we’ve got to get rid of those mistakes, not dwell on them, hope that we learned from last week, that we can defend better in certain situations and take our opportunities.
“I think the one thing that will change the game is if we could score a goal first, because it just puts doubts in their minds. I think the two games I’ve seen [Leicester] they’ve really had it easy. I know Coventry did well that first half, and they a few chances as well, but the quality came through in the end, and I hope that we can compete against that.”
Asked where Leicester’s strengths lie, Warnock admitted: “I think everywhere. You tell me where there’s a weakness, let alone the main threat. They’ve got attacking players, wide players, as good as anything, to international strikers that would get in anybody’s team in our league.