David Wagner has hinted he may give some of Huddersfield Town’s top stars 90 minutes at Barnsley on Saturday.
Town are back in training at PPG Canalside after their 3-2 defeat to SV Sandhausen in Germany, when Tom Ince and Steve Mounie were again on the scoresheet.
What Wagner described as ‘slight injuries’ to Scott Malone and Jordan Williams were the only downside of the workout and the head coach is keen to press on with pre-season work against the Championship side at Oakwell.
“We are now into preparations for Saturday and I have it in my head to give players 90 minutes,” said Wagner, who has so far limited most to 60 minutes at a stretch against Accrington Stanley, Bury and Sandhausen.
“I will make decisions towards the end of the week, but I think this is the next step.
“To be fair, we got everything we wanted out of the Sandhausen trip.
“It wasn’t in my thinking at the beginning of pre-season because we would usually have liked to play around Huddersfield, but we couldn’t find an opponent with the quality we wanted.
“So we were lucky to find this opportunity to go to Germany and to play Sandhausen – and we used the opportunity to get everything we wanted, apart from the result of course.”
Wagner believes, knocks apart, the squad are progressing well and the new players are slotting in well.
“This is what pre-season is all about, to get fit and to get to know each other, and everybody is doing what they need to take the next step,” he said.
“We have seen some players are more tired than others, but this is usual. The important thing is that everyone tries to do the next step, and they have done.”
