A daft red, late rally, exciting prospects, good spells & a failed early kickoff experiment – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s league cup exit to Boro

Huddersfield Town crashed out of the League Cup on Tuesday night after losing 3-2 to Middlesbrough. The scoreline flattered the Terriers a bit, as the early sending off of Jaheim Headley made it very hard for a weakened Town team to compete with Boro despite Tow taking an early 1-0 lead. 

Even though there was a difference in quality between the two teams, there was quite a lot to like about Town’s performance and it hopefully left Neil Warnock feeling more confident about the ability levels of his backup players.

Harratt opens his account for the season

Kian Harratt’s first Town goal of the year was a bit of a team effort as it came as a result of some excellent pressing work. Their defender coughed up the ball to Josh Austerfield, who quickly played Harratt in. But he only did that because the rest of the defence were under pressure too. And this wasn’t a one-off mistake. Town were giving Middlesbrough a torrid start to the game by unsettling their attempts to play out from the back. We did the same to Plymouth last Saturday too.

After watching Town lose possession in dangerous areas so often when Carlos Corberan was trying to make Town a passing team, it’s nice to see us exploiting this weakness in other teams. In the second-tier it’s fairly rare for defenders and keepers to be good enough on the ball to be able to withstand consistent, aggressive pressing and pass through it without making mistakes. So our tactic of pushing teams who play out from the back makes complete sense. As long as we have the legs to do it.

Sadly losing a man meant we had to abandon this tactic.

Daft red card

The defining moment of this game came when Jaheim Headley made the decision to hack down his man when he was clean through on goal. It was the wrong decision, as the ref had no choice but to award the red card and Headley condemned his teammates to play seventy-odd minutes with a man down. Had we been in the eighty-ninth minute, then you could argue that a tactical foul and red card would have made sense as there wouldn’t have been enough time for the extra man to make a difference but with so much time left on the clock, it was a poor choice.

Headley is a young player and will learn from the experience though. Next time he’ll let the player through and either they’ll score and he’ll get stick for letting his man get goal-side or it won’t lead to a goal and it’ll be forgotten about. 

While Headley made a mistake, it’s inexcusable that some idiots racially abused him online following this incident. Social media can be wonderful for many things but unfortunately it also gives some of the world’s worst people a platform to spew hate from. Hopefully the culprit will be found and brought to justice.

Good response to the red card

I wasn’t too concerned that the red card meant we were going to lose the game, as it was already pretty obvious the club don’t care about this competition. However, it did annoy me because I expected such an early red card would ruin the game as a spectacle and Town would get hammered by a Boro team that were already much stronger than them on paper and now had an extra man.

But from the sending off until half time, I thought Town did remarkably well. We sat deep at times and frustrated our opponent but when the opportunity was there we counted with aggression and creativity. Harratt was a handful as the lone striker and Rhodes carried out an unusual midfield role where he popped up everywhere and scrapped for possession. He showed a bit of a nasty side too, which is unlike him but welcome to see, as it helped to get under the skin of a few of their players.

After a slow start to the game, Brahima Diarra grew in influence too, frequently the player we’d turn to in attack to try and buy a foul in the final third or to try and take on a few players at once. His end product could still be better but I think he’s already showing signs of improvement from last season and seems to be learning more with each game he plays.

Too much pressure in the second half

I think Middlesbrough came out in the second half with a bit more of a battle plan and our lads were starting to flag a bit, after putting in an incredible shift already in the first half. We weren’t bad in the second half but we definitely lost a lot of our counter-attacking energy and spent long periods sitting deep in our own box, defending wave after wave of attacks.

I’d say we actually defended admirably and kept the score at 1-1 for a good while. But once they got their second the game felt over and it soon became three without much of a response from Town. 

Boro’s obsession with balls in behind

One thing that really struck me about Middlesbrough’s approach to the game was how they seemed to be endlessly attempting to thread balls in behind Town’s defensive line. They were caught offside six times in the match, and squandered possession several more times with hopeful balls for their forwards to chase that they didn’t get anywhere near. 

It wasn’t an awful tactic I suppose, as their first goal came from a lovely diagonal ball that put Silvera through on goal. It just seemed strange to hammer away at one tactic over and over again. Particularly when they were frequently misjudging the offside trap too. When there was a difference in ability levels in the two teams, if have thought a more varied approach to their attacking might have for better results.

On the whole, I was a bit underwhelmed by Boro. It was obvious that their team had the better players but they didn’t seem to be able to ever get into a groove and string a series of passes together, despite being up against a team that was mostly youth players with a man down. There were flashes of ability from a few of their players but also quite a lot of rustiness and disjointedness to the way they played.

Hard to judge Town’s performance

To only lose 3-2 to a strong Boro team is a fairly decent achievement for this young Terriers team but at the same time, it was a defeat and we were fairly comprehensively outplayed for long sections of the game too. That’s to be expected when you’re a man down, but I think the red card robbed us of the opportunity to get a good chance to really know how well these players can compete against a decent team.

The fact they weren’t turned over and beaten by a huge scoreline is encouraging for sure and there were some individuals that came out of the game with some notable credit too. I liked the look of Austerfield in midfield, who was understated but very steady throughout. Similarly, Ayina looked solid at the back and stood up to a lot of pressure and very rarely wobbled. Nakayama was also very promising on his first competitive match back from injury and he very nearly capped it off with a spectacular acrobatic goal which was saved at the near post. 

On the other hand, I was less impressed with Brodie Spencer, who was mostly fine but probably won’t want to watch replays of the first or third goals as he could have done better with each. I also thought Edmonds-Green continued his sluggish form from Saturday in midfield in this game and Scott High was a mixed bag.

Late rally could have been led to different ending 

I’ve saved comments about two of the subs for a separate section, because Pat Jones and Kyle Hudlin combined to create some excitement at the end of the game. With Jones doing well to make the most of a fairly sloppy layoff from Hudlin and hooking a cross into the box, which Hudlin converted with a stooping header. 

I think a VAR referral might have chalked this goal off for a Hudlin fouling the Middlesbrough defender he was closest to, as he’d pulled him all over the place before winning the header but the ref awarded it in real time and the goal stood. It’s strange that he’s six foot nine and the header he scored was actually at waist height but it was his to win because he used his strength to get there first. 

In many ways it’s a shame Hudlin’s arrival was left until the 86th minute, as he gave us a different way of playing. I was hoping he’d start this game but Rhodes was preferred, perhaps a sign that Warnock is trying to build bridges with the experienced striker. Regardless, Hudlin’s arrival meant we had a target to aim for, and with a load of tired legs on the pitch, hoofball seemed like a legitimate strategy. Perhaps making the change ten minutes earlier might have allowed us more time to push for an equaliser and the chance of penalties. Probably not though.

Early kickoff a failed experiment 

While we’re on the topic of timings, I would like to finish by voicing my opinion about the seven o’clock start time for this game. I understand that the club wanted to try kicking off this game a bit earlier in the hope it would attract a few more children to the game, as it would mean an earlier finish too.

My impression from looking around the stands was that there were about as many youngsters as there would be at any normal midsummer night match anyway. It’s the summer holidays after all, so most parents are willing to allow a late bedtime to watch a football match, but the thing I really noticed was how many late entrants the early start created. 

In fact, it was only the morning after the game when the club uploaded the highlights that I got to see the events leading up to Harratt’s goal. Some late arriver in the row in front of me was taking their seat, so I missed the good bit of pressing Town did and by the time the people in front sat back down Harratt was in possession and smashing the ball home. Not the end of the world, but all the way up to half time, there was a steady stream of late arrivals who must have had to rush down after work and couldn’t quite make it in time for kick off. 

Evening games can be a bit of a rush at the best of times but an extra-early kick off makes it even more difficult for many people. While there will be some people that benefit, particularly those with younger children, I think the net effect is most likely detrimental and this experiment feels like it didn’t quite work. 

I commend the club for giving this kind of thing a go though, and if their data shows they sold a shedload more family tickets and the ticket barriers weren’t allowing any more late arrivals than any normal evening match then I’ll happily stand corrected. But my impression was otherwise.