/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54945595/664036548.0.jpg)
Reading, the bad guys?! How far we've come folks.
Never mind the fact Huddersfield have won the top division three times, captured the FA Cup and featured in five finals, their manager is still keen to try and portray themselves as the little club done good, which I suppose you can have a certain amount of sympathy with based on the last 30 odd years.
I'm not a massive fan of David Wagner, the bloke just winds me up the wrong way for some reason. Despite that, I've got nothing but admiration and respect for him as a football manager, the same way I can appreciate the overall success of Brendan Rodgers even if he drove us all mad with abysmal PR during a terrible six-month spell at the Mad Stad.
With Monday's Play-Off final rapidly approaching, Wagner has been giving his final media conference ahead of our Wembley meeting and one quote in particular stands out.
DW: I think almost everyone in England and Europe hopes this #htafc fairytale has a happy ending (AT)
— Huddersfield Town (@htafcdotcom) May 25, 2017
We're biased, I'm biased, but is this really true?
I think Huddersfield's rise back up the Championship has been a nice story but a fairytale? I'm not so sure. As mentioned, massive credit to Wagner for building this run with limited resources but it hasn't struck me as anything overly remarkable.
More to the point, is this the team the neutral wants to go up? Anecdotal and social media evidence is all we have to go on but I've not noticed a particular groundswell of love or backing for Wagner's side. Sadly, most Premier League fans seem ambivalent to both teams, with one co-worker just outright saying neither club excited him as a supporter of a current top four club. Fair enough.
Anyway, in fairness to the German/American, he did have some nice things to say about Reading.
DW: @ReadingFC deserve to be in the final; they did a great job against @FulhamFC (AT)
— Huddersfield Town (@htafcdotcom) May 25, 2017
Elsewhere there's some injury updates but much like Jaap Stam, Wagner wasn't giving too much away. The Huddersfield Head Coach confirmed Elias Kachunga and Kasey Palmer are both in contention but declined to say how much they'll be involved on Monday.
So that's Wagner's side of the story. I can only imagine the kind of quotes we'll have to wade through IF Huddersfield beat us on Monday, which is just another reason to get the ruddy job done please lads.