Jorgensen happy to take pressure off Huddersfield’s misfiring strikers

Mathias Jorgensen hopes Huddersfield’s defenders can continue to bail out their side’s goal-shy strikers.

The Terriers have scored fewer goals than any of their Premier League rivals this season – 10 in 15 matches – and all their strikers have so far fired blanks.

Last season’s top scorer Steve Mounie remains suspended for Saturday’s game at Arsenal, so Laurent Depoitre will resume his quest for that elusive first goal.

“There is pressure on the boys up front to score and it will always be like that,” Jorgensen said. “When you’re a striker you need to score and our boys know that.

“They are working hard every day, but it is good when the rest of the team can take some of that pressure off by scoring from other positions.”

Denmark international Jorgensen and the Terriers’ other central defenders, Christopher Schindler, Terence Kongolo and Jon Gorenc Stankovic, have contributed 50 per cent of their side’s goal tally with five between them.

“It’s something the manager asked us to focus on this year because he didn’t think it was right that we (the defenders) didn’t score last season,” he said.

“He basically challenged us to get some goals as defenders and we’ve done that.

“We don’t really look at the team as defenders, midfielders and attackers, so as a team I think we’ve performed good this season.

“We’ve performed better than the points tally shows. The only difference I can say from last year is our defenders have scored a lot more.”

Back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Bournemouth have left David Wagner’s side one place and a point above the bottom three.

After Saturday’s game at the Emirates Stadium the Terriers face successive home matches against Newcastle and Southampton before a trip to Old Trafford on Boxing Day.

Jorgensen, though, is relishing this weekend’s challenge against the Gunners, for whom he had a trial before joining FC Copenhagen in 2007.

“It’s a big stadium and a very nice place,” he said. “The club is full of history and great players and we will be playing against great players.

“Of course that’s something you look forward to, to measure yourself against one of the top teams in the Premier League.

“I did have a trial there, over two periods when I trained with the first team under Arsene Wenger, so there’s a bit of history.

“I ended up staying in Copenhagen and moving to FC Copenhagen to play there because there was first-team football straight away.

“There were negotiations (with Arsenal) but we never went further than that.”