‘No rights’ – Michael Duff issues League One warning to Huddersfield Town

Huddersfield head coach Michael Duff wants to ensure there is “no entitlement” among his new squad as they look to get promoted back to the Championship at the first attempt.

Town will embark on their first League One campaign since 2012 after finishing second from bottom in the second tier last time out and installed as one of the favorites for promotion by the bookies.

The Terriers were a Premier League club as recently as 2019, but have had a difficult few seasons after dropping out of the top flight, with the exception of the 2021/22 play-off campaign.

Read more: Michael Duff’s first words as Huddersfield Town manager as grand plan set out

After suffering a second relegation in six seasons, Duff insists his new side do not have a divine right to return to the Championship straight away, with the head coach pointing to several examples of clubs struggling to get out of the third tier.

Assessing the differences between the two divisions, Duff said: “I think the physicality is very much, I think (that’s) the only thing in the Championship (compared to League One) and there are leagues within leagues in it.

“In the Championship, apart from the parachute-paying teams, who is the little team in the league? While in this league there are big, big boys, of which we are one of them, and there are also smaller ones who have completely different goals.

“In the Championship, I imagine there will be 18 teams who think they can make the play-offs at the start of the season. It’s not like that in this league, but there will still be ten teams who think they can get into the top six and there will always be a surprise package, because there always is.

“It’s to make sure the players (are made aware) that just because we’re playing in a big stadium and it’s going to be in front of a big crowd, there’s no right. They will be told this, because I have seen it.

“It took two or three years for Sunderland, for Derby a few years. You look at what Ipswich just did, but they didn’t get relegated and came straight back. They needed that reset and it doesn’t instantly mean ‘okay, you’re going to win the league next year’.

“Make no mistake, that’s what we want to do, but it just doesn’t happen. It’s constant work and constant application and building incremental things to achieve ultimate success. Talk is cheap, so we need to make sure we’re ready to implement all these things.”

To ensure his side are capable of challenging for promotion, Duff has vowed to ensure his squad is fundamentally “fit, strong and organised” throughout next season.

The new head coach has placed particular emphasis on his side needing to be both physically and mentally fit for the upcoming campaign.

“All my teams were built to be fit, strong and organised. That’s what they (the players) have to understand,” Duff added.

“Yes, you want to play attacking football, you want to get in front of people, but the bases are right, strong and organized.

“They’d better get fit and they’ll get fit and they’ll be fit until the end of pre-season. That’s not just physically fit, I mean mentally fit. Obviously, with strength and conditioning, everything that comes with it, (being) mentally strong and then organized.

“That’s my job and the coaching staff to organize them, and then from that platform, you can go play good football, you can be aggressive in the press, you can put the ball in the box in certain areas of the field, but, first of all, you have to build the foundations, with the team, the club, everything.

“It’s happened before, we did it at Barnsley, we managed to tie a club down. It was very similar, there was a disconnect between everything, a lot of players wanted to leave and all sorts of things, but if you can go with this football club, this support, the infrastructure, the owner, it’s exciting times. “