Huddersfield Town might have transfer regret - 25-year-old was ideal for Liam Manning | OneFootball

Liam Manning may regret Ruben Roosken leaving Huddersfield Town before the close of the January transfer window.

Huddersfield Town will be expected to mount a sustained challenge for promotion in the second-half of this season after yet another busy month in the transfer window.

That busy month eventually finished up with wing-back Ruben Roosken surprisingly joining Oxford United on loan until the end of the campaign, and that surprise departure could be something that Town boss Liam Manning ends up regretting.

The biggest move that Huddersfield made in the January transfer window came in the dugout, with Manning replacing the underperforming Lee Grant, whom Town had taken a risk on last summer.

Manning had guided Bristol City to the play-offs in the Championship as recently as last season before a woeful time of it in charge of Norwich City at the start of this campaign.

It is a bit of a coup for Huddersfield to have landed the former Oxford United and Milton Keynes Dons boss, and after a heavy summer of recruitment boosted by some seemingly impressive January additions, such as Ryan Hardie and Cameron Humphreys, the Yorkshire outfit will be expecting to be in the top six at least come the end of the season.

Bizarre and fairly haphazard decision-making, both on and off the pitch, has been a theme of their decline in the last couple of seasons and Roosken may again be an inadvertent error.

Ruben Roosken would surely fit the Liam Manning style

Throughout his managerial career, Liam Manning has had major ups and downs with a brilliant season at MK Dons followed by a complete collapse ahead of then leading Oxford to a magnificent start to the 2023/24 campaign.

He departed the U’s for Bristol City and was often under pressure with the Robins lacking much progress until they almost inexplicably reached the play-offs, albeit they did find some form with Manning sticking to his three-at-the-back system.

Norwich saw Manning attempt to play a four quite often but, as was the case with MK Dons, Oxford and Bristol City, where had successful times, his best results came with the three.

That relies upon wing-backs being both of requisite quality but simply also adept at playing in that role, with issues at Norwich, and his reversion to a four, being that he simply didn’t have the squad to play with that system.

The thing at Huddersfield this season has been that their squad, due to Michael Duff’s presence last year, is almost perfectly suited to a three-at-the-back shape.

Despite that, Lee Grant was determined to play a back four until results became so poor that he changed the shape and actually began to finally find some form through the early winter.

Results eventually dipped again but the three-at-the-back system has seen Huddersfield play their best football this season and still remains the shape that is most suited to their squad – and Ruben Roosken was a major part of that.

The departure of Roosken now leaves Mickel Miller and Bali Mumba as options for the wing-back role, but the former perhaps lacks the quality and consistency for a play-off chaser, while the latter already has to carry the heavy burden of likely, like at Plymouth, being tasked with being one of Town’s more creative threats, having been moulded into a winger in his latter days at Argyle. Mumba has also played more regularly on the right side, too.

Ruben Roosken would have been ideal depth and experience for Huddersfield

Having arrived at the John Smith’s Stadium from Dutch outfit Heracles Almelo in January 2025, Roosken arrived at a Huddersfield side that were just about to collapse.

They were in automatic promotion contention in January but, by March, Duff had been sacked, and they suffered 12 defeats in their final 15 games of the campaign to succumb to a mid-table finish.

It should have been a more settled season for Roosken to really get his feet under the table with Huddersfield but, instead, a massive overhaul of the squad and the ambitious appointment of the rookie Grant led to further uncertainty and inconsistency at the start of this season.

The 25-year-old Dutchman has, therefore, mainly through circumstance, understandably struggled to find much rhythm, but he is a player that has the pedigree and quality to be more than useful for a side targeting promotion from League One – especially with the way in which Manning wants to play.

It does have to be said that Roosken has been way below expectations in terms of the quality and consistency that he has shown, but his profile and pedigree is surely something that Huddersfield be attempting to work with.

Inadvertently, Manning may have done former club Oxford a massive favour by allowing Roosken to move to the Kassam Stadium. The fact a Championship club has made a move for the defender in the first place should ring some alarm bells for Town’s decision makers.