Important context behind Huddersfield Town transfer window should not be lost

At time of writing, the average Championship side has made 2.7 new signings. Huddersfield Town, of course, have made just one, with Will Boyle arriving back at the club from Cheltenham. With the greatest of respect to the centre-back, though, what fans want to see are the midfielders and attackers that Leigh Bromby acknowledged would be the priority at the start of the window.

The question is how much of a cause for concern that should be for fans, who are growing increasingly impatient with seeing a seemingly endless parade of announcements of new club commercial partners but now new signings. The jokes around that are mostly good-natured, but there is a definite undercurrent of impatience and frustration that is seemingly growing by the day.

The club needs to do that commercial business, of course, and any accusation that their priorities are in the wrong place on that front completely misunderstand the way that football clubs work. The people responsible for signing those sponsorship deals are not being dragged away from transfer business to get them signed up, after all.

As it stands, the 8,856 league minutes Town have lost from their squad through sales, releases and loan players going back to their clubs gives them the sixth-lowest percentage in the division (18%), behind only Bristol City (5%), Wigan (12%), Luton (13%), Blackpool (13%) and Coventry (14%). There are 12 clubs – half the division – whose player departures represented over a quarter of their league minutes last season.

That, plus their third-place finish last season, suggests that Town have a much smaller rebuild on their hands than most of their divisional rivals. Cardiff, Rotherham and Stoke City have all made at least five signings, yes, but