Huddersfield will be hoping to have a go at returning to the Premier League this season, after a disappointing couple of years, and will be Brentford’s first league visitors in our new stadium.
The Terriers won a dream promotion to the top flight by beating Reading in the 2017 Championship play-off final.
In their first season in the Premier League, they ended up 16th – four points clear of the relegation zone. However, they could not survive a second campaign – finishing rock bottom with only 16 points.
They had a dreadful start last term, with seven defeats in their first eight games leaving them in the relegation zone.
The appointment of Danny Cowley as manager, with brother Nicky as his assistant, slowly helped them turn the tide and in the end they finished 18th – three points clear of danger. However, the pair were sacked just before the end of the season.
Huddersfield have had a difficult start to this season with two 1-0 home defeats. They crashed out in the first round of the Carabao Cup after losing to Rochdale and then slipped to another loss against Norwich in their opening Championship game last Saturday.
They do have two ex-Bees in their squad in goalkeeper Ben Hamer, who won promotion from League Two with us in 2009, and midfielder Alex Pritchard, who helped us reach the Championship play-offs in 2015.
WHO’S IN CHARGE
Carlos Corberan was appointed as Huddersfield head coach towards the end of July.
The 37-year-old had been at Leeds for three years, where he coached their under-23 side and was also Marcelo Bielsa’s assistant.
His only previous experience of being a head coach was with Doxa Katokopias in Cyprus.
He retired from playing aged only 23 after playing in Valencia’s reserve team, so he could start a career in coaching.
WE’VE MET BEFORE
Brentford have met Huddersfield eight times in the Championship, with the Terriers winning on four occasions and one match being drawn.
We have failed to win any of our last four meetings.
The first game, in December 2014, finished 2-1 to the Terriers in West Yorkshire. Sean Scannell gave them an early lead and a Jake Bidwell own goal after the break doubled the advantage before Jonathan Douglas replied for us.
The Tuesday night return three months later saw the Bees run out comfortable 4-1 winners. A Chris Long double, either side of Harry Bunn’s reply, put us in control and Alex Pritchard and Jon Toral put the seal on the win late on.
There were goals galore the following season with six of them in each game as we did the double over the Terriers.
The Griffin Park game on the Saturday before Christmas saw us put four past them again, although this time we ended up winning 4-2.
We were 3-0 up at the break through Sergi Canos, Lasse Vibe and Alan Judge. Joe Lolley pulled one back right at the start of the second half, but a Judge penalty restored our two-goal advantage, before Kyle Dempsey hit a late reply.
In the return – on the last day of the season – we earned an extraordinary 5-1 away win. Canos put us ahead in the first minute before a second half goalfest. Jamie Paterson equalised five minutes after the break but a quickfire double from Scott Hogan and a strike from Vibe put us 4-1 up before John Swift hit the fifth in the 88th minute.
Strangely, we faced each other on the first day of the following 2016/17 season and Huddersfield did the double over us on their way to promotion.
Elias Kachunga put the Terriers ahead five minutes into the second half, but substitute Nico Yennaris levelled for us 13 minutes from time. Huddersfield immediately threw on Kasey Palmer, and he hit the winner 60 seconds later, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat.
Rajiv van La Parra hit the only goal of the Griffin Park return in March midway through the first half to give Town a 1-0 win.
The victory left Huddersfield third in the table, six points behind top two Newcastle and Brighton, while we slipped down to 14th after not scoring for the first time in 12 Championship games.
Only two Brentford players named in the matchday 18 that day, three-and-a-half years ago, remain at the club. Rico Henry, who started, and Sergi Canos, who came on midway through the second half.
We failed to score against Huddersfield last season.
A solitary goal from Karlan Grant at Griffin Park at the start of November gave them a 1-0 win which stretched their unbeaten league run under the Cowley brothers to seven games. The result meant we dropped to 13th place in the table, while Huddersfield climbed to 18th.
The return in January ended 0-0, with Grant missing a great chance to win it for Town, before Josh Dasilva hit the post at the other end. We missed out on the chance to move up to third as a result, while Town stayed in 20th.
HOW TO FOLLOW THE GAME
The match is being played behind closed doors at the Brentford Community Stadium (3pm kick-off).
Season ticket holders have been sent a code to watch a live stream of the match on iFollow, while live audio commentary is available on iFollow with Mark Burridge and Marcus Bean. There will be reports and updates on BBC Radio London from Billy Reeves.
IAN WESTBROOK
@ianwestbrook
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