Tom Lees return turns Huddersfield Town debate into hard reality for Neil Warnock
The centre-back is closing in on a return after returning to training following calf and back injuries, but a place straight back in the starting line-up is not guaranteed
There’s a reason that fans weren’t clamouring on social media for the Terriers to go out and sign a centre-back. Well, there’s lots of reasons, to be honest; only strange children like I was will go out and get a defender’s name on the back of their shirt. (“We don’t get many Henchozs in here,” I believe was the exact quote from the lad in the club shop.)
Nonetheless, it’s a position where Huddersfield Town were particularly well-stocked coming into this season – so much so that Matty Pearson played at right-back for the final few months of last season and his presence in the middle wasn’t even really missed. Along with Michal Helik and Tom Lees, Neil Warnock seemed to have a nailed-on centre-back trio whenever he wanted to play a back three.
Having missed all of pre-season with a calf issue and the campaign proper with a subsequent back injury, Lees is now back in training for Town and aiming to get into the starting line-up. The only issue for him is that no longer feels like quite so much of a guarantee.
Pearson has been one of Town’s best performers so far this season, escaping any real censure even among his side’s various defensive calamities. Without being poor, reigning player of the year Michal Helik has not quite been at the level he was last season, but putting him back in the middle of the back three against West Brom restored him to full power.
Read more: Huddersfield Town boost as duo return to training after injury absences
Joining Pearson and Helik in the rearguard that afternoon was – for most of the game – Josh Ruffels, a player reborn under Warnock whose improvement at left-back translated into an even more convincing showing as a centre-back at the Hawthorns.
Pointing at Ruffels after one game and saying ‘that’s it, keep him there forever’ would be premature, not to mention representing a second positional change for the former central midfielder – but at the same time, why remove him after he was one of the best players on the pitch all afternoon?
That also comes at the cost of the man who replaced him at West Brom, Yuta Nakayama. His appropriately slow-and-steady return from injury has made it a non-argument in a practical sense so far, but there will be a real decision to be made there sooner rather than later, with Warnock admitting recently his thinking was along the lines of how to get Ruffels and Nakayama in the side together .
Which way Warnock goes could depend purely on current form, in which case it’s surely Ruffels. Going on longer-term proven quality, it’s Lees; indeed, we’re not sure there’s anybody in the squad who has been as relentlessly consistent over the past two years. But if Town want both a left-footer and a player who can step out of defence with the ball to play passes from deep…isn’t Nakayama the best candidate, in principle at least? And that’s assuming that Pearson and Helik’s places are guaranteed, which…are they?
We saw in 2021/22 that there can be benefits in rotating the defensive options depending on what is likely to work best against different opponents, with Carlos Corberan generally playing Pearson, Lees and Levi Colwill but sometimes drafting in Ollie Turton, Naby Sarr or Jonathan Hogg, depending on opposition and availability. The nice part is that it doesn’t really feel like Town can go wrong whatever they do here.
