Huddersfield Town starlets' second auditions for first team should be fairer for everyone

Leigh Bromby made clear when announcing Pat Jones’ new long-term contract exactly what Huddersfield Town expect to see from the Welsh 19 year old in the season ahead.

“Now his challenge is to force his way into Carlos’ squad more permanently,” the Terriers’ head of football operations said of the winger in a club statement. “He’s trained extensively with the first team, most recently during the period surrounding the play-offs, and now we want him to hit the ground running in pre-season.”

Jones is not the only one in that shiny new boat. Central midfielder Etienne Camara has likewise trained with the first team, while right-back Brodie Spencer earned his first full Northern Ireland caps earlier this month; both players will be hoping to catch Carlos Corberan’s eye in pre-season training.

Only…this isn’t the first time Jones and Camara have been around the first team. Town played no fewer than ten teenagers in all competitions the 2020/21 season: Aaron Rowe, Ben Jackson, Josh Austerfield, Matty Daly, Brahima Diarra, Pat Jones, Mustapha Olagunju, Etienne Camara, Myles Bright and Scott High. Half of them (Jackson, Daly, Diarra, High and Jones) got at least some minutes in the league over that campaign.

The following season provided unnecessary confirmation of something we already knew: that the majority of those players had been thrown into games out of necessity more than because they were actually ready for it. Only Rowe and High got any minutes last season (and only 11 of them, in Rowe’s case); several of the rest were sent out on loan to League Two.

However, it’s important to bear in mind that we are still talking about very young players here. Those auditions they were given the season before last in an under-stocked