HUDDERSFIELD PREVIEW

Sunderland host Huddersfield Town in the second round of the League Cup. Here’s everything you need to know about our opponents:

FORM

Huddersfield sit second in League One after winning four and losing one of their first five matches. Their last game was a 1-0 win over Stevenage, with Alfie May grabbing the winner with around 25 minutes left on the clock. In the last round of the League Cup, they drew 2-2 with Championship Leicester City at home, before beating them in the penalty shootout. Daniel Vost and Cameron Ashia scored for the hosts.

THE MANAGER

42-year-old Lee Grant is in charge of the Terriers. He took the job in May 2025 and this is his first gig as a head coach. During his playing days, he was a goalkeeper and played for Derby County, Burnley, Oldham Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday, Stoke City and Manchester United. He won a Young Player of the Year award with his first senior club and Player of the Year awards at Wednesday, Burnley and Stoke.

KEY PLAYERS

Their number one goalkeeper is 21-year-old Owen Goodman but, 11 years his senior, Lee Nicholls started for them in the last round of the cup. He saved a penalty in the 90 minutes and saved two during the shootout. Three of their players are jointly leading the goalscoring charts for them, all with two. They are, central midfielder Ben Wiles, striker Alfie May and attacking midfielder Cameron Ashia. None of their players have registered more than one assist so far this campaign. May is a new signing and other new additions this window include, defensive midfielder Marcus McGuane, centre back Jack Whatmough and, of course, former Sunderland man and right back Lynden Gooch.

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

We last played Huddersfield in February 2024 and our opponents won 1-0 in Michael Beale’s penultimate game in the dugout. Our last meeting at the SoL came in November 2023, we lost 2-1 on that occasion. The last time we beat Huddersfield was in November 2022, with Amad Diallo and Alex Pritchard scoring in a 2-0 win. In fairness, we’ve not played them that often, but you’ve got to go all the way back to April 1999 to see the last time we beat them at home. We last played the Terriers in the League Cup in 2003, when we lost 4-2 at our stadium but we did beat them away, 1-0, in the same competition in 1992. We’ve never beaten them at home in England’s secondary cup competition.

PREDICTION

We never seem to do well in the cup competitions, mainly because our second string side over the last few years has been quite far away from the quality of the first team. That may still be true but the bar has been raised significantly and our second choices are now pretty much just our Championship team from last year plus, hopefully, a couple of the new signings we’ve not seen yet. They did knock out Leicester in the last round, so they shouldn’t be underestimated, but that was at home. I’m going to say they score but that we’ll do the same three times. 3-1 to Sunderland.