Exclusive: Don Goodman reacts to big Huddersfield Town, Lee Grant news | OneFootball

This EFL pundit feels Lee Grant would be a big gamble for Huddersfield.

Huddersfield Town’s season ended in disappointment, and another year consigned to the third tier.

Despite investing heavily in January, the Terriers laboured to a tenth-placed finish – their lowest finish in over 10 years.

They have been without a permanent manager since they sacked Michael Duff in early March, with interim Jon Worthington taking the reins. The club’s hierarchy opted to delay their next appointment until the end of the campaign, but almost a month on from the final game of their season, Huddersfield have yet to welcome a new man.

Several bosses have been linked with a move to West Yorkshire, and the latest of those is Ipswich Town coach Lee Grant.

Don Goodman believes Lee Grant would be a big gamble for Huddersfield

In recent weeks, the likes of David Wagner, Ruben Selles and St Mirren’s Stephen Robinson have all been linked with the Huddersfield job, but now Grant has emerged as a potential frontrunner.

According to Alan Nixon, the Terriers are reportedly closing in on Grant in a bid to make him their next permanent boss.

The former Burnley, Derby County and Stoke City man has recently stepped into coaching as part of McKenna’s backroom team at Ipswich, but now it looks as though he could be about to move into management.

If he were to get the Huddersfield job, it would be the 42-year-old’s first ever managerial job, in either senior or youth football.

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, Don Goodman suggested that he feels it would be a significant gamble for Huddersfield if they were to opt for Grant.

The EFL pundit said: “He’s got no experience, but then you would argue that his boss, Kieran McKenna at Ipswich, didn’t have any experience. Chris Davies at Birmingham City didn’t have any experience either.

“Everybody has to start somewhere. At the level, Huddersfield would be very ambitious to get back to the Championship as soon as possible.

“It would be a gamble, there’s no doubt about that. The only way we will ever know whether it would be too big of a first job for him is if he got the job and he either succeeded or failed – it’s a really difficult one.”

Huddersfield will hope that Grant can translate McKenna’s football

With the success that McKenna has had at Ipswich, it is no surprise to see a member of his coaching team be linked with another EFL job.

The Northern Irishman led the Tractor Boys to promotion from the third tier in 2022/23, before immediately securing their return to the Premier League in the following campaign.

In both of those seasons, the Suffolk outfit finished with over 95 points, and their entertaining, energetic brand of football received plenty of plaudits from around the leagues.

Having seen how effective that style of football proved for Ipswich, Huddersfield must surely be hoping that Grant can translate that across to a different set of players and a different environment.

However, there will also naturally be concerns that Grant is too inexperienced for a job which is almost as big as they come at League One level.

The Terriers have endured a sharp decline as a club in recent seasons, having been in the Premier League as recently as 2018/19. They fell into League One for the first time in 12 years ahead of last season and will now be desperate to claw their way back into the top two tiers as quickly as possible.

Given some of the more experienced names that have been linked with the job so far, Grant certainly seems like something of a left-field option.

It could definitely be argued that with the way the club has struggled in recent years, this is the sort of gamble that Huddersfield don’t really need at this moment in time.

However, there is also potential that Grant’s appointment could unearth the next managerial gem in the EFL and prove to be a masterstroke later down the line.