Huddersfield Town won their first away game in 5 months on Saturday, when they beat QPR 1-0. It was a good all-round team performance and relied on grit and organisation more than attacking flair to get the result over the line.
Before our thoughts turn to Wednesday’s crucial clash with Sheffield Wednesday, here are some of my final thoughts about last Saturday’s game.
A competent 1-0 win was better for confidence than a big win
Keeping a clean sheet again and finally managing to successfully defend a narrow lead will have done wonders for our confidence. Town haven’t won many games 1-0 this season, mostly because we have tended to try to score more after going ahead and that has also led to conceding more too.
A comfortable victory would have been nice but showing a bit of character and game management to secure this 1-0 win is better in the long run because it shows the players that this new, less attractive way of playing can get results.
The two games before QPR were obviously better performances from Town, with everything looking tighter at the back and our possession being a lot less tepid but two draws weren’t results that conclusively proved this new style would get us where we need to be. Saturday’s win shows the players they can get good results against teams in this league and means we’re now unbeaten in three.
The difficulty Carlos might face now is convincing the players and the fans to revert to expansive free-flowing football once safety is assured. As much as we all like to watch nice football being played, most fans and players prefer whatever style of football gets results.
We missed Sanogo when we went long
One thing I thought didn’t work well for Town was our ability to win long balls when we punted the ball up field (Beck made a similar observation in the player ratings comment section). With Sanogo on the bench we weren’t able to win enough of the long balls down field and it meant we allowed QPR to win back possession nearly every time we went long.
Booting the ball downfield rather than dithering at the back is a sensible approach in our current circumstances but if we are going to play this way it seems odd not to have someone on the pitch who is suited to winning those balls.
Playing Campbell and Mbenza as a front two seemed to be a deliberate choice to give us pace to break away when we won the ball back but I’d say we failed to create many chances to get in behind QPR and would have been better with Sanogo on as a target man from the start.
This is a minor quibble though and I’m hopeful that Sanogo’s relatively light duties at the weekend will mean he is fit and fresh for the Wednesday game.
We did to QPR what so many other teams have done to us
One of the most revealing stats from this game was the possession figures. Town had barely a third of the ball yet managed to stay in control of the game for long periods by staying organised and only allowing QPR time on the ball in areas where they couldn’t hurt us.
This is exactly what other teams have been doing to Town pretty much all season. The tactics will have been easy enough to explain, because our players have seen this approach used so often and struggled to find answers to it, just like QPR struggled with us.
It must be bitter sweet for Carlos to see one of his core beliefs about the way football should be played being so easy to exploit. Yet he’ll be delighted to have won a game that helps him keep his job.
The bookies understand how big a win this was for Town
Before this weekend Town were three to one to go down and after this win and some other favourable results elsewhere we are now twelve to one to be relegated. This is a huge swing in the odds which suggests the scalpers think we’re more or less safe now.
Wycombe and Sheffield Wednesday are both odds on to drop down to League One with Rotherham, Birmingham and Derby all seen as more likely candidates for the drop than Town. Not that bookies get it right every time but it feels like we’ve pulled away from the pack, at least for the time being.
I was pretty scathing of Mark Devlin’s comments in last week’s statement that Town were on the fringes of the relegation battle but after a good weekend of results he’s now more or less right.
The off-the-field stuff matters less when we’re winning
It’s fair to say there has been a lot of negativity around the club in 2021, mostly because of the dire football that we’ve had served up to us but also because of how things are being run behind the scenes.
Yet when Town win it’s very hard to be too upset about the issues at boardroom level. It’s not that these issues around recruitment, finances and ambition aren’t still there but they just don’t seem quite so urgent when we’ve got a victory to warmly look back upon.
The negativity will return with the next bad result but for now it’s nice to be able to feel a bit less concerned about relegation and at least entertain the possibility that things might not be so bad at Town. Until the next outrage comes along.
Thanks for your comments, apt as ever, I was staggered by Town’s possession stats as watching the game it didn’t feel to be as low as that – just shows that winning is all!
I also wish to thank you for Dean Hoyle post, which I have only just read. A very interesting article, especially the revelations about the Play-Off Final, which had me pondering how that came about, who instigated it? Conjuring images of meetings down dark country lanes, with Columbo, Inspector Morse and Sag Norn lurking in the bushes ensuring fair play!
I like this blog. Not becasue I agree with everything you write, but becasue I think you’re fair-minded and not some knee-jerk jerk who thinks that the world is ending when we lose and we’re making a late run for the title when we win, so I found this a bit out of character: “It’s fair to say there has been a lot of negativity around the club in 2021, mostly because of the dire football that we’ve had served up”
We have a young and inexperienced coach who has got us playing some of the best football I’ve seen at HD1 for years. There have been some bad patches in there, and some ‘dire’ defending (especially vs Wycombe and Watford), but to just ignore some of the quality goals, and the way the team is growning and learning under Carlos is out of character. I can see that mistakes have been made, but I can see what we’re trying to build and I’m excited about how good this team could become. We’ll blow it vs Wendies now I’ve written this, but I really think, if nothing else, Phil and co have done a great job in bringing in CC and I’m so bored of the negativity.
Thanks for your comment Jay. You’ve most likely got a point about my closing comment being overly critical. You’re right to point out that we’ve seen some nice football played earlier this season and done lovely goals. Our bad patch in January and February was pretty grim though. It seems like this recent change in approach has ended our bad run and given Carlos a Plan B in the process.
I’m not sure I’m ready say I think Phil is doing a great job but I think he is trying to do his best by the club and the strategy he’s using has a good chance of helping establishing us at this level in a sustainable way.
Glad to hear some positivity about the team for a change, thanks for sharing your thoughts even if it’s risked cursing us for the next game. Luckily for us we go into the Wednesday game not needing the win whereas they absolutely do need a result. I’ll have the torch on my mobile at the ready just in case.
getting three points on Saturday eases the pressure of Wednesdays game but as I have said before any result in the championship is to be expected I thought sheff wed played well against Norwich and they are more than capable of beating us and Barnsley on Saturday.we also are capable of winning too so Wednesdays game will decide nothing plenty points to play for andit will go down to the wire before the relagation positions are decided. one game at a time is the best way.
I think the difference in football before Christmas and after Christmas can be put down to two things. Firstly the injury list and( just as important) secondly we got found out. Teams knew exactly what to do to take points from us. They all used the same template and got results.I bet opposing head coaches were rubbing their hands together when they played us. I personally hope we don’t go back to CC’s first system because after the initial surge I found it boring and stale.If Town revert to this dross they will unfortunately lose a lot of their fan base.The people who swelled the crowds when we got promoted were welcome but if we carry on gifting goals to the opposition like we have been doing some of these people will be gone and Town will lose a lot of revenue because of it.
Its Good That CC Has Now Got A Plan B Teams Were Reading How We Play We Were Having A Lot Of Possesion and No End Product Players Look To Have More Confidence Schofield is Now Taking Goal Kicks and Kicking The Ball Up Front How Many Points Have We Lost Playing The Ball Out From The Back And Getting Caught In Possesion YAYA Looks like He Can Take The Ball And Lay It Off So Hopefully We Can Keep This Up
Issues around recruitment, finances and ambition for next season still seem pretty urgent, I think. If we go into yet another season with a worse squad than the season before (next season is likely to be our fourth in a row) are we sure we can survive in the division, let alone thrive?
If Schindler and Bacuna are to go as – seems likely – some quality replacements are required. And either Sanogo is declared a success and gets a contract, or we need a quality replacement for him too. We can’t be so lucky as to survive without a striker for a second consecutive season.
I’m pretty sure Carlos has an idea of the players he needs to allow him to play his preferred style of football. Will anyone in authority listen to him I wonder?
Odds of 12/1 from 3/1 on the back of one victory does seem a bit extreme. Nonetheless it’s great to sense more optimism in the camp. I said it before but I’ll say it again – the importance of Hogg to this team cannot be underestimated. I thought Vallejo did well deputising for Hogg but it’s all the extras you get with Hogg – the organisation, the talking to players – that makes all the difference. This season he’d by my first name on the team sheet. Let’s worry about next season once we are assured of Championship football.