Joe Taylor has struggled at Huddersfield since joining them in the winter window of last season. Following a reported £3 million transfer from Luton Town, he played regularly for Michael Duff’s Huddersfield, before finding himself a bit part played under new manager Lee Grant, starting just five games so far in the 25/26 season as Huddersfield battle inconsistency to fight for promotion.
Supplanted by Bojan Radulovic, Alfie May and Dion Charles, chances for the 23-year-old are likely to be thin on the ground.
Enter stage right, Duff’s Wycombe Wanderers.
Wycombe have several strikers at the moment, but none have convinced they are the long-term options in the position under Duff. Cauley Woodrow has largely started in the position but has just two goals in fourteen league matches, and is also a loanee from Luton Town. At 31, Wycombe’s hierarchy are unlikely to consider him the long-term choice for the role.
Fellow loanee Donnell McNeilly has rarely started for Wycombe and has proven better as a second striker or winger, while Bradley Fink has his own issues in front of the net and doesn’t seem to have the trust of Duff.
Given Wycombe, and Duff’s search for a striker, it may make sense to take a look at Taylor and what he could offer for Wycombe.
Taylor offers a very interesting statistical profile, and would likely be a very different player to current started Woodrow.
Woodrow often drops deep, to both link play and to allow the wingers of Sam Bell and Fred Onyedinma to cut inside into the space he’s left as a “false nine”, and to link the play deeper. Using Taylor in this role would eliminate all his strengths and highlight his weaknesses.
Taylor is well suited (similarly to Fink) to playing on the shoulder of the defenders, trying to burst into space into through balls or low crosses, or sitting in the box as a poacher.
He ranks highly in shots, expected Goals and accelerations, but his passing stats leave much to be desired. In essence, he is the man you want to get the ball in the box to, but is not the man who’s capable of getting it there for someone else.
This would in of itself require a tweak in the attacking system created by Duff, but this may well be in order given the general attacking impotency of all of Wycombe’s current number nines regardless.
Perhaps the major issue with Taylor would be the fee required to sign him. While Wycombe under Mikheil Lomtadze haven’t scrimped on signings, Huddersfield are unlikely to want to take a massive loss on the 23 year old even if he is seen as surplus to requirements by Lee Grant.
A fee of at least £750k, perhaps even closer to a million plus could be required for Taylor, and this would represent a massive gamble on the Wycombe’s board part for a player who hasn’t scored freely since his loan spells in the 2023/24 with Colchester United and Lincoln City, scoring 12 goals in 27 league games and 10 goals in 19 games respectively.
With the winter transfer window rapidly approaching, all eyes go towards the potential signings Wycombe could make to continue to strengthen the squad and push for their ambitions of promotion.
