Owner Kevin Nagle of Huddersfield Town thinks his team could need to win “four or five” of the next nine games in order to keep their Championship standing.
The Terriers lost 4-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion on Sunday, sending them into the relegation zone over the weekend. Now, for the first time since September, Town is in the bottom three.
With only eight victories this season, Andre Breitenreiter’s team has amassed 38 points from 37 games played. Currently, they are one point below the drop zone in 22nd place.
Nagle promised to provide Breitenreiter and the players with “everything that they need” to make sure the team survives this season, recognizing the gravity of Town’s situation.
In his most recent video diary, which was uploaded on X, the Terriers’ owner declared, “We’re in a fight for nine matches.” “I don’t like to lose, and I don’t want to move down; I’m not even thinking about that right now, so I’m not happier than anybody else.”
In a few weeks, I’ll be there, and together we’re going to roll up our sleeves and push everyone to the very end.
“Now that we have total control, next year will be a whole different story.” I think we know what has to be done; some modifications need to be made. Actually, we’re currently implementing a lot of changes, but they’re not coming about soon enough.
“We will most likely need to win four or five of the remaining nine matches to maintain our current position. It’s simply that important,” Nagle continued. “We have specific objectives, but the truth is that we’re currently falling slightly short of them.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not good at losing; it’s a simple fact.” From that perspective, the year has been incredibly difficult, but also often demeaning and embarrassing.
“We lost 4-1 today, we shouldn’t have lost 4-1, and we’re not going to lose 4-1 very many [times] in the future, it’s just I want to win. I think it’s going to take a little bit more time.
“We’ve got nine games to figure this out to staying [in the league], and I think next year will be very different. I can’t think about next year right now, I’ve got other people doing that, we’ve got to think about the next nine games, roll our sleeves up, give Andre whatever it is that he needs, give the players everything that they need, and make sure that we take it over the line.”
After registering a win away to Watford and a draw at home to Leeds United in Breitenreiter’s first two matches in charge, Town have now lost back-to-back games against Cardiff City and West Brom.
In their latest defeat on Sunday, the Terriers had put themselves in a promising position as they led 1-0 at the break, but conceded four second-half goals to fall to a convincing defeat.
“I am really frustrated,” Nagle said of Sunday’s loss. “It was a phenomenal first half, I think we should have had at least one or two more scores. We knew that probably wasn’t going to be enough.
“Frankly, West Brom, I thought we were just dominating them. We knew that their manager (Carlos Corberan), who we’re obviously very familiar with, went in and made some adjustments. I fully expected Andre to make some adjustments, because you counter the counter. Unfortunately, they came out on fire.
“It was very frustrating, it was a very poor second half on our part. I have not talked to Andre yet, I’ll talk to him tomorrow, and I’ll get a download about what happened. We just fell apart.”
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