Huddersfield Town face Cardiff tomorrow, in a game that’s already being billed as a relegation six-pointer despite the season being only two games old. I’ve even seen one person on Twitter describe this game as the least appealing game in the history of the Premier League.

Regardless of the naysayers, I’m really looking forward to this match. After a punishing couple of games to start our season, we’re now into a run of games which we can expect Town to be much more competitive. That doesn’t mean we’ll win, but it means we’re likely to see Town have more than 20% possession and may even see a goal or two.

Here are a few things to look out for in the Cardiff game…

A return to attacking football

There’s been a lot of debate about David Wagner’s tactics in the first two games, but this game should see a return to the hard pressing and positive football that got Town promoted from the Championship.

I expect we’ll revert to the 4-2-3-1 shape Wagner prefers, but regardless of the formation, we should see a lot more possession and attacking football from Town. This will hopefully mean we’ll also see some of our new wingers given more than just a cameo appearance. I’m particularly excited to see what Diakhaby can do in the Premier League as he looked great in preseason.

Under David Wagner, Town have consistently struggled to score goals, often dominating passages of play without being able to turn good football into goals. Whether this season is a success will depend upon whether we can consistently score, so there’s a lot of pressure on Town’s creative players to lay on the chances for the strikers to finish. This game will be the first real test of whether our summer acquisitions will provide a solution to this problem.

Expect a battle

Neil Warnock is a divisive figure in football but I think he’s brilliant. He was Town’s manager around the time I first started going to matches, and I’ve since loved his no-nonsense approach to the game. The Premier League is currently dominated by fresh-faced continental managers that bring new ideas of tactics to the league, so it’s interesting to see a member of the old guard mixing it at this level.

Cardiff may not play the kind of football that gets the analysts slavvering over their laptops, but Neil Warnock teams are never pushovers and he’ll set them up to get a result. They’ve had a tough start to life in the Premier League but they’ll see this game as their chance to get their first win on the board, so won’t make it easy for Town.

I’ve mentioned above that Town will hope to return to playing attacking football for this game, but they’ll have to earn the right to play. It’s possible that Cardiff will look to turn the game into a physical battle, so we have to be ready to mix it up with them first, before we can start to play beautiful football.

A few familiar faces

There’ll be plenty of ex-Town players to see on Saturday, as well as Neil Warnock in the away dugout. Lee Peltier, Sean Morrrison, Danny Ward (the fat-faced winger, not the penalty hero), Jazz Richards, and Alex Smithies are all in Cardiff’s squad. Sadly Anthony Pilkington won’t feature, as he’s not been given a squad number this season, presumably he’ll be farmed out before the Football League transfer deadline at the end of the month.

I personally hope all these old familiar faces receive a warm welcome from Town fans. I don’t have any animosity towards them, and will applaud each of them for their contribution to the club when they were here.

There are two reasons it makes sense to give a fond reception to ex-players. Firstly it’s the decent thing to do, but it also avoids giving a returning player incentive to play well against us. Booing and jeering players often motivates them to go out and stick it to the fans that are giving them abuse. Warm fuzzy feelings are less likely to stir up match-winning performances.

What will the atmosphere be like?

One of the unquestionable highlights of Town’s spell in the top fight has been the atmosphere at home games. Nearly every game has produced consistent and spine-tingling noise on all sides of the ground, and I hope it continues.

However, there’s been a lot of doom and gloom among Town fans since our spanking at the hands of Man City last Sunday. I worry that this negative attitude could affect the atmosphere on the pitch. I’m sure we’ll be in good voice at the start of the game, but can our support continue if the game isn’t going our way?

As fans we’ve all got a responsibility to try and give the players a bit of support from the stands. This has given us the edge in many games since David Wagner arrived, and we’ll need it against Cardiff. The results and performances have been disappointing in our opening two games, but those games are done now and it’s important not to let that disappointment spill into this game.

Are Cardiff the new Huddersfield Town?

I’ve noticed that Cardiff are being dismissed this season in a similar manner to they way Town were last season. The media and other teams’ fans are quick to write them off and assume they’ll be going straight back down. They may be right, but I wouldn’t recommend underestimating Cardiff.

Like Town had last season, Cardiff have the momentum from promotion in their favour and while they lack superstar players, they’ve got good team spirit and work well as a unit.

It would be a mistake for Town fans to consider this game an easy win, if we’re going to win we’ll need to be at our best and be willing to fight.