‘No fire sale here’ – Michael Duff opens up on Huddersfield Town’s ambitions in the Barnsley midfield

Huddersfield Town head coach Michael Duff believes “there is optimism all over the place” as the club head into their upcoming League One campaign.

The Terriers are chasing a return to the Championship after suffering relegation last year, with Town ending a disappointing season with a second-from-bottom finish last time out.

Town will begin their third-tier campaign in less than two weeks, with Duff’s side first facing Peterborough United away on Saturday 10 August.

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The Terriers turned to Duff shortly after relegation to lead them into League One, with the former Cheltenham Town, Barnsley and Swansea City boss taking the reins at the John Smith’s Stadium in May.

The 46-year-old says he has enjoyed his time in the role so far and welcomes the challenge of rebuilding the team after last term’s relegation.

“I loved it, it was great,” head coach Duff told BBC Radio Leeds. “Everyone has been incredibly welcoming, there’s an optimism all over the place about this buzzword ‘reset’, and from my perspective, it’s an opportunity to get your hands on something and reset an infrastructure and to build something. That’s why I took the job, that’s what was sold to me.

“It’s very similar to what we did at Barnsley in terms of a club that has just been relegated, but there’s no fire sale here. We have an owner who is ambitious, I am ambitious, the club is ambitious, they already have a brilliant infrastructure.

“We’ve just been relegated, we don’t have an open checkbook by any means, we’re not buying everything in sight, but some of the important environmental and cultural things are being implemented. My job is to try to build a winning football team.”

Duff began to rebuild the squad by making four new additions, bringing in Lasse Sorensen, Mickel Miller, Herbie Kane and Antony Evans, while Jack Rudoni and Tyreece Simpson were sold.

Town have shown encouraging signs in pre-season, winning five of their six friendlies to date, including victories over Hertha BSC 2. Bundesliga and Serie A side US Lecce in last week’s training camp in Austria.

Duff has been pleased with the attitude of his players so far as they look to implement their head coach’s ideas.

“The thing I’ve learned is they’re willing to work,” Duff said. “We want to be aggressive in the press, we want to be on the front foot, because we’re just trying to change the mindset of a lot of last year, where it sat.

“The boys did it almost too much, where we press when we shouldn’t, so today (against Hertha BSC) we condensed a bit and went more into a midfield block, then when they went into certain areas of the field, we were very aggressive then.

“That’s just education, but in my view, they do what we ask, sometimes to their detriment, because they do it when they shouldn’t. I’d rather (I tell them) stop running than start running.

“Last week (the defeat to Aris Limassol) was more due to the fact that they were tired, as I said, and we played against a good team. I thought some of the possession stuff was really good today, just the last pass was a bit sloppy, but for everything they had the ball I thought we played more through them.

“They went over the top and went a long way, which is what we want. We want to hurt teams, we don’t want the ball for its own sake.”