Chris Powell wants to put down a marker for this season’s Yorkshire derbies when Huddersfield Town go to Barnsley on Saturday.
The club picked up just three points from eight Championship matches against their White Rose rivals last season and it’s a record Powell is keen to improve.
He’s hoping striker Ishmael Miller may be involved for the first time in pre-season just a week before the opening league game at Hull City.
“It’s Yorkshire Day and a Yorkshire derby at Barnsley and, even though it’s a pre-season friendly, it’s a practice for the Yorkshire derbies coming up because we didn’t do well enough in those last year,” mused the manager.
“We need to get some results in those this time and get some bragging rights in the area – I’ve learned about that pretty quickly! – so I’m happy we’ve got this game coming up.
“It will be a completely different sort of test to Deportivo and Barnsley will be looking for a positive result, just like we will going into the new season.
“We are approaching it and preparing well and we will look to play our football and see how we go.
“Having had a good turn-around and a good response from what happened at Rochdale – I was pleased with the solidity against Deportivo as I said after the game and I felt we used the ball well at times – but we know there is more to come and now we need to look to build.”
