If Cardiff City are to plot their way to the top, it will have to be via methods they've not used before. Gone are the days of multi-million-pound transfers and eyewatering wages over lengthy deals. Things will be different now.
Different doesn't necessarily mean bad, of course, just ask Huddersfield Town. They are preparing for the play-offs as they bid for Premier League promotion, just a year after their manager was under huge pressure to keep his job and a number of key players were coming to the end of their contracts.
What has followed has been nothing short of remarkable for the Terriers, who appear to have gotten everything right, on and off the pitch, over the last year or so.
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Steve Morison has made no bones about the fact the Huddersfield blueprint is the one Cardiff want to follow. After the game against them back in February, Morison said: "Do we want to be more like Huddersfield? Yes. Can we be more like them at the minute? No. Things take time. You look at where they were a while back and where they are now, it shows if you believe in the process that’s where you can get to."
While it seems fanciful at the minute, the top six next year would be some achievement from where the Bluebirds find themselves now. Difficult, but not impossible, as Huddersfield have proved.
So, just how did the Terriers get to where they are now in just a year? We sought the expert insight of Huddersfield correspondent STEVEN CHICKEN from our sister title ExaminerLive and here is what he had to say...
Q. Carlos Corberan was under immense pressure just over a year ago, how has he managed to turn it around?
First and foremost, Huddersfield Town have a much stronger squad this season. The first XI last season was decent enough and had them not far outside the play-offs at the campaign's midpoint, but injuries to multiple key players including captain Christopher Schindler, top scorer Josh Koroma, striker Danny Ward and talented left-back Harry Toffolo exposed how alarmingly thin the rest of the squad was, with B-team players and desperation January signings forced to fill gaps in the starting lineup and coming up short.
That was essentially because the club's wage budget was stretched to its maximum while they waited for the big contracts handed to several players from their Premier League spell to wind down - many of which belonged to players who had generally been poor in a Town shirt, like Alex Pritchard and Isaac Mbenza. That may well have been a factor in a somewhat fractious dressing room that needed more of the right kinds of characters.
This season, things couldn't be more different. Town have had key players out injured at various points this season, too, and while it's been nothing approaching the scale of last season thanks to a less gruelling league schedule and a change to training methods, the back-up options have proven to be more than capable of stepping up. Some, like Sorba Thomas and Ollie Turton, have even made their shirts their own despite Corberan's admission that they weren't particularly in his first-team plans coming into the season.
Thomas and loan signing Danel Sinani have been key to another huge factor behind Town's successes this season: their record on set pieces. They've gone from being one of the Championship's worst sides in the division from dead balls over the past two years to being the highest-scoring set-piece side this season, with Thomas and Sinani excellent at putting deliveries in from corners and free kicks.
Q. What has the recruitment policy been like? And how hard is it to get it right dealing with largely loans/frees, the market Cardiff find themselves in now...
Overseen by the increasingly impressive head of football operations Leigh Bromby, Town's business last summer was mostly done quickly and almost universally done very well. Before the end of June they had sewn up deals for proven Championship players in Jordan Rhodes and Matty Pearson, with Tom Lees joining later in the window.
On top of that they were able to use their good relationship with Chelsea to bring in one of the most talented young defenders in Europe in Levi Colwill, who has been brilliant in his debut season in English football. That relationship hasn't sprung up overnight; the club have spent the past few years trying to develop a reputation for being a club where young players will get a chance to shine in a progressive, modern style of play. That's how they've been able to attract the likes of Trevoh Chalobah, Emile Smith Rowe, Ajax's Carel Eiting and Tino Anjorin since returning to the Championship.
Sinani also arrived on loan from Norwich City to add a technically proficient option in attacking areas, and much-needed squad depth was added by signing two of last season's best League One full-backs in Turton from Blackpool and Josh Ruffels from Oxford. Between them they had just one prior Championship appearance between them despite being in their late 20s, but Town had faith they would be able to handle the step up.
Perhaps the signing of the summer, though, was goalkeeper Lee Nicholls, who was plucked from the bench at League One MK Dons and immediately turned into the best goalkeeper in the Championship this season. An incredible bit of scouting, that one.
That's in keeping with where Town have been most successful with their recruitment for the last decade or so. They picked up Koroma and Thomas from non-league, Toffolo from League One, and identified that Ward deserved more than a place on the Cardiff bench. After a difficult, injury-hit first season, Ward has been superb this term, leading the side's goalscoring charts but more importantly offering an enormous amount of work on and off the ball that has been crucial to Town's play.
Finally, the club are insistent on players being the right characters for the dressing room. Even well before it became apparent they would be play-off contenders, players were speaking about how it was the best dressing room they'd ever been part of in a way that was clearly genuine and not just the usual empty footballer platitudes.
Q. What is the coaching philosophy? And how about the playing style, has that changed and was patience needed?
When Corberan first came in, he struck us as very dogmatic and unwilling to adapt his ideas to fit the players at his disposal. Perhaps that was a necessary step to getting the players up to speed with what he wanted, but it became more of a hindrance than a help last season.
This season, he has been the total opposite. Over the second half of the campaign, in particular, he has changed his side's shape and approach practically every game to adapt to the opposition threat, and he gets his tweaks right far more often than not.
Their shape can be hard to pin down because they can have one formation on the ball and a completely different setup off it; but the fact that they have been successful playing seven different on-the-ball formations on the ball this season speaks volumes of how well-drilled the players are on what is expected of them regardless of the shape - something that has only come with time.
Fitness is at the core of everything. Practically every player who walks through the door loses a lot of weight within their first few weeks at the club. The infamously intense 'murderball' sessions that he picked up from Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds have been put on the back burner, and while Corberan remains demanding on the training pitch, there has been an enormous reduction in muscle injuries and a notable improvement in the side's ability to go the full 90 minutes.
Q. Finally, what are the major dos and don'ts if Cardiff are to emulate Huddersfield's success next season?
Don't expect it all to happen overnight: it took three years of major pain for Huddersfield Town to get everything in order, from getting the dead wood off the wage bill to ensuring there were no undesirable characters in the dressing room.
Do have a coherent philosophy across all levels of the club - from first team to under 17s - has paid dividends for Town and allowed players like Lewis O'Brien and Scott High to break through from the old youth system, while Jon Russell has been able to step seamlessly into the first team and become a regular starter having spent the first half of this season playing B team football having been released by Chelsea in the summer.
Don't be swayed into thinking that splashing the cash either on transfer fees or wages is necessarily the route to success. Some of Town's worst players over the past three years have been among their highest-paid, while most of their best players have been academy products, savvy signings from the lower leagues or free transfers with Championship experience. Having the right players for the system and with the right working attitude is more important than a random assembly of talented players who aren't putting in the hard yards.
Finally, do be adaptable and be willing to lean into your strengths. The more pragmatic Corberan has been about getting the most out of the players he has rather than trying to force square pegs into round holes to suit some platonic ideal of his perfect football team, the better Town have performed this season.
