Huddersfield Town reaction given to 'difficult' Joe Taylor transfer decision | OneFootball

Joe Taylor cost Huddersfield a hefty fee and another big deal is what we will be needed for them to sell, according to FLW's Terriers' Fan Pundit.

Huddersfield Town have found themselves once again underperforming in League One, relative to pre-season expectations, as they hover outside of the top six and the play-off places.

Liam Manning, who appeared to be a bit of a coup of an appointment in January when he replaced Lee Grant, has divided opinion for a while now.

The Terriers’ 3-1 defeat at Home Park against Plymouth Argyle at the weekend, having led the Pilgrims, has made it two victories in just ten matches across all competitions.

When Grant departed the John Smith’s Stadium, Huddersfield had turned themselves into League One’s top scorers with a month and a half or so of good scoring form.

Since then, though, they have been a frustrating watch for both Town supporters and the neutral, netting just nine goals in those ten games.

In the meantime, Joe Taylor, once a big money signing in West Yorkshire, is in excellent scoring form for a relegation-battling Wigan Athletic side – and his future is up in the air.

Huddersfield failed to get the best out of Joe Taylor

As recently exclusively revealed by Football League World, Championship clubs such as Oxford United and Preston North End are interested in signing Joe Taylor.

The 23-year-old striker, who enjoyed an excellent loan stint at Lincoln City after a productive spell at Colchester United in the 2023/24 campaign, was sold to Huddersfield by Luton Town in January 2025.

For a hefty fee, believed to be worth up to £3 million, Taylor was expected to be the focal point of an automatically promoted Town side but, instead, left on loan in January 2026, having scored just six goals in 34 League One appearances.

In Lancashire, though, Taylor is in fine form with nine goals in 13 Latics games and FLW Fan Pundit Graeme Rayner believes there is still a future for Taylor at Huddersfield and believes it would need to be a fairly big bid for him to be sold on.

“Joe Taylor is an interesting one.

“He’s been at the club for just over a year and hasn’t necessarily set the world alight at Town but I don’t think he’s necessarily been used to his strengths.

“I think his loan spell at Wigan has shown that if you play to his strengths then you can get results from him.

“He’s scored nine in 13 for a Wigan side that are 19th in the table. They are not far above the relegation zone, albeit it feels to me like they’re safe.

“It’s a difficult one.

“I think it all hinges on whether or not he wants to be at the club and, whoever is in charge at the club next season, as a manager or coach, wants to use him in the right way.

“He wasn’t cheap. Official records on his transfer fee vary but rumours are that we could be talking £2 or £3 million on what was a young and exciting player – and we haven’t seen a return on that yet.

“If he was to go then we’d need to get good money. It would have to be a seven-figure fee in the region of £2 million I would have thought.

“Is anyone going to pay that for him? I don’t know.

“I like him. A lot of Town fans don’t like him.

“I think that he is one of many players that has suffered due to a high turnover of managers and a not particularly exciting or striker-driven style of play for the majority of the time he has been at the club.

“I think that if this season teaches us anything, writing a striker off can prove to be daft.

“Look at Bojan Radulovic, he went out on loan, has come back and has been arguably our best striker and we are counting the days until he is fit again.

“I’d like to see him stay and I’d like to see us use him to the best of his abilities but if he goes up to the Championship then £2 or £2 and a half million would seem fair.”

Joe Taylor isn’t the only player to struggle at Huddersfield

Having spent heavily in the summer of 2025, following their collapse at the back end of last season, Huddersfield were expected to challenge for the title this season with Alfie May leading their front-line.

The former Charlton Athletic striker, who helped fire Birmingham City to a record-breaking 111 points in League One last season, has struggled, though, being shifted around across the attack and never seeming settled with just five goals in the third-tier this season.

Around the same time as Taylor’s arrival, Huddersfield also poached Northern Ireland international striker Dion Charles from League One rivals Bolton Wanderers but the former Accrington Stanley man has also failed fairly miserably thus far with just two league goals for Town.

Plenty of big money signings have been made and pretty much no player has lived up to expectation with Huddersfield once again failing to be a serious challenger in League One this season.