Latest Huddersfield Town injury news as Michael Duff fires Manchester United Under-21s warning

Huddersfield Town head coach Michael Duff has stressed that “turning up mentally and physically is the first port of call” for his side ahead of tomorrow's EFL Trophy tie against Manchester United's Under-21s.

The Terriers host the Premier League academy at the John Smith’s Stadium in a 7.45pm kick-off in their final group stage game, as they look to progress to the knockout stages of the competition.

Town know that they must beat their opponents in normal time to leapfrog their visitors in the table and secure their spot in the next round, otherwise their EFL Trophy campaign for this season will come to an end.

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Duff believes that mentality and physicality are the key areas for his side to focus on in order to come out on top against their technical but youthful opponents.

“They’re at Man United for a reason, they’re talented boys,” Duff said. “You look at them, they’re all athletically really, really good, they can all handle a football, and it’s an opportunity for them to impress.

“If our lads rock up with the wrong mentality, and treat it like ‘I can’t really be bothered to be here’, it’ll be a long [evening]. That’s what Saturday could’ve been, because they were such a possession-based team (Crawley Town), but the mentality was good on Saturday, and they need to turn up with that.”

“It’s a different sport now the Premier League compared to League One, it’s a completely different animal,” Duff added.

“These young boys, they don’t play League One football – the centre-halves split and the full-backs drop right out, people rotating all over the place, so it’s different to what we’re used to.

“They will cause us problems if we give them an opportunity, so we need to make sure that we’re physically better than them, which we should be just from age, but they’ll be energetic I know that.

“You need to impose your style on the game, you need to win your duels, you need to show that physicality. Lots of games of football are won on physicality, the Tamworth game being one. We think we’ve got some good players, we want them to enjoy it and pass the ball as well, but turning up mentally and physically is the first port of call.”

The Terriers head into the clash off the back of a 2-2 draw at Crawley on Saturday. Duff felt his side’s performance was good enough to warrant the three points, with the head coach believing his team will win most matches if they create the number of chances that they did at the weekend.

“We should’ve won the game. It’s not the first time this season, every stat tells you that we should win it apart from the important one,” said Duff.

“We’ve had enough chances, they’ve had two shots and scored two goals. I think it was a better response. Even when the second goal goes in, you can tell the mentality of the group that they didn’t really celebrate it, because there were still 20 minutes left, and we’ve created enough chances in that last 20 minutes to win the game.

“From my point of view, you’ve got to look past the disappointment of the actual result and look at the numbers and the performance, and if you create that many chances, most games you’ll win the game, and that’s what we have to get to.”

Duff reported a clean bill of health from Saturday’s draw, while the head coach insisted that he would be fielding a “strong team” for the United clash.