Huddersfield Town head coach Michael Duff has stressed the importance of not taking “the easy option of excuses”, despite his side having had to contend with a significant amount of injuries throughout the season to date.

The Terriers had nine players sidelined for their last encounter at Wycombe Wanderers, with Nigel Lonwijk, Michal Helik, Danny Ward, David Kasumu, Lee Nicholls, Rhys Healey, Mickel Miller, Lasse Sorensen and Ruben Roosken all unavailable to feature through a combination of injury, illness and suspension.

Town have managed to put together a 15-game unbeaten run in League One in spite of the injury setbacks they have suffered. And Duff insists his side have to continue to deal with any adversity that comes their way.

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“I think it was six weeks ago, we had eight injuries and it was eight different body parts, from toes to elbows to every muscle in the lower limbs,” Duff said at a recent press conference. “We thought we were unlucky then, but now we’ve had a few repeat ones, which we need to look into. It just seems to be constant at the minute.

“Then you get illness thrown in randomly, and there’s no pattern to that. Normally an illness goes through a squad, where the whole squad’s ill for a week, but we seem to have one or two and it’s been going on for four or five weeks.

“It can cajole you to have that siege mentality, where everything we’re doing (on the injury front) is going wrong but we’re still managing to pick up results, but at some point you need your luck to turn, and you do need a few more bodies.

“A little bit of luck is the midfield three kept us going for so long, because if Kas’ (Kasumu) injury had happened three or four weeks before, we would’ve literally been screwed.

“Now he’s out injured, Tom Iorpenda’s struggling with his back, but Hodgey (Joe Hodge), Hoggy (Jonathan Hogg) and Antony (Evans) have come back in, so there is a little bit of luck in terms of that, but it’s unprecedented.

“I think Ruben’s probably the best one. He’s 25-year-old, he’s never been sent off in his life, and he comes on, plays seven minutes and gets his first-ever red card. That’s when you’re thinking ‘I’ve driven under 400 ladders here at some point’.

“Just keep working hard. Work hard, don’t take the easy option of excuses, sob stories. No-one’s interested in football, it moves too quickly. When you think you’ve got it worked out, football doesn’t care, and no-one cares about your excuses.

“They’re a reality, they are facts, that we’ve got a lot of players injured and we’ve had a lot of adversity, but outside of our dressing room, no-one really cares, so it’s finding a way. That’s been part of the mentality that we’re finding ways.”

Duff praised his side for the way they have stepped up in challenging circumstances when required to do so. He added: “We’re having to play people out of position, we’re having to fast-track people, in terms of people getting on the first-team pitch when they’re not ready, whether that’s Radinio Balker or Jonathan Hogg the other day.

“Hodgey started last week when he shouldn’t have done, he’d played 25 minutes and he’s having to get thrown in as a start, but that’s where it’s credit to the players.

“They’ve not looked around and blamed everyone else, they’ve gone ‘this is it, we either get on with this or we miss opportunities’, and that’s one thing they haven’t done, they’re not missing the opportunities.”