Match Preview: Ipswich Town v Huddersfield Town (Saturday, 12.30pm)

Huddersfield Town travel to Ipswich Town on Saturday lunchtime in the Championship.

The visitors come into the game on the back of a draw in their last match, having tied with Birmingham City 1-1 at home, with a goal from Rhys Healey.

The Blues, meanwhile, won their last match, 2-1 against Coventry City, with their goals scored by Kieffer Moore and Cameron Burgess.

With 90 goals in 45 games so far this season, Ipswich are the league’s highest scorers with 2.0 goals per game. And they are conceding at an average rate, letting in 57 goals at a rate of 1.3 per game.

Huddersfield, meanwhile, are below average scorers, with 1.1 goals per game, compared to a league average of 1.3. They have conceded 1.7 goals per game.

Ipswich Town are second in the table after 45 games, of which they have won 27 and drawn 12, earning 93 points.

Huddersfield Town are 21 places behind the Blues in 23rd, with nine wins and 18 draws putting them on 45 points.

In the last 10 years, Ipswich and Huddersfield have played each other on seven occasions. Ipswich won one of them, Huddersfield three, and they drew three times.

On average, the Blues scored 0.7 goals and the Terriers 1.1 in those matches.

Their last meeting was on September 30, when they played out a 1-1 draw.

In Václav Hladký, the home team can rely on one of the league’s safest pair of hands. He has kept 14 clean sheets in his 45 appearances this season, and only two other ‘keepers – Leeds United’s Illan Meslier and West Bromwich Albion’s Alex Palmer – have been able to prevent the opposition scoring on more occasions in the Championship.

In the Terriers’ net, Lee Nicholls has seven clean sheets in 37 games. He has conceded a goal every 61 minutes, 30% more often than the 81 minutes between goals for Hladký.

Ipswich are in mixed form in the Championship, with two wins and three draws from their last six games.

With a win and three draws over that period, the visitors’ form is worse – they have taken six points from 18, compared to Ipswich’s nine.

Saturday’s match will be refereed by Simon Hooper, who has taken charge of four Championship games so far this season, issuing no red cards and booking 19 players. He has not awarded any penalties.

He is yet to oversee a match featuring either Ipswich or Huddersfield this season.

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Ipswich Town v Huddersfield Town
Championship | Portman Road
Saturday, 4 May 2024 @ 12.30pm

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