Reading v Huddersfield Town – Danny Ward hoping Terriers learn lessons from testing campaign

The Terriers need to win at Reading today to equal last season’s 51-point tally but regardless they will finish one or two places lower in the Championship than under Danny Cowley.

The club changed tack in the summer and in the first half of the season got the more exciting brand of football they wanted from coach Carlos Corberan, only for things to fall away in the face of many injuries. Ward suffered throughout the campaign, his first back at the club since 2016, and has only made five starts and scored once.

“All the lads would agree it’s not been the best season,” admitted the 29-year-old. “It’s not where we wanted to be as a club that was in the Premier League two years ago and on a personal level it’s been a bit of a nightmare with injuries and not playing anywhere near as many games as I wanted to.

“Now it’s just about looking forward to next season, preparing right and making sure we’re not in this position again.”

Ward is hoping the squad can reset physically and mentally for next season, when they should be better adapted to Corberan’s very demanding training sessions.

“I’m getting back into the team so I want to keep up the momentum but for the lads who’ve been non-stop every week it will be good to have that break and a normal summer and get back at the end of June and try to get back to normal,” said Ward.

“We’ve suffered a lot of injuries. At one point when I was injured there were seven or eight other key lads injured and it was hard, so that was a key factor.

“But sometimes you can just get in a rut and next season it’s about knowing how to get out of that as soon as possible.

“(The training) does take a lot of getting used to because it’s a lot harder than anything I’ve done in my career before but I think it shows now all the lads are available for games and the injury list is not anywhere near where it was before so I think by the time we start next season it will be all good.”

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