Danny Schofield in good company among Huddersfield Town bosses as history repeats again

Herbert Chapman, Neil Warnock, David Wagner and Carlos Corberan are not bad company for Danny Schofield to keep, even if it is for the wrong reason: the Huddersfield Town head coach got off to a losing start in charge of Town, just like those luminaries before him.

That has been the way more often than not for new permanent Terriers gaffers over the past 30 years, with Schofield the 18th person to take charge of the club full-time over that span and the 14th to lose his first league game. Only Lee Clark and Simon Grayson started their reigns with wins, while Peter Jackson’s second spell and Stan Ternent’s doomed tenure began with draws.

We know that fans already understand that new head coaches need time to get things going, and there is an apparent willingness from the Terriers faithful to extend that courtesy to Schofield. But while they are not pointing the finger at Schofield, the boos that rang out at the John Smith’s Stadium at half time suggested that patience will be in short supply, even if the irritation is directed elsewhere.

As bad as that first-half outing was, though, we should not forget that Town did put in performances like that at times last season, too – not just Fulham early on, but at home to Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough, Swansea, away to Millwall, in both games against Bournemouth, and most punishingly, in the play-off final.

Those games did not come to define Huddersfield Town’s 2021/22 season or Corberan’s reign, though, and Schofield and his players can still go on to prove that their opening day loss was no more than the kind of teething problems you might expect to get under a new head coach playing a new system without any of his new signings in the starting lineup.

The next few games will