What an awful result and performance from Town. It’s a tough one to take and this game, for me, represents the point where it’s almost impossible to ignore the fact we’re now in a relegation battle.
Town showed the same weaknesses they’ve been showing all season and allowed a 2-0 lead against the most toothless attacks in the division to slip away and end in defeat.
Here are a few of my immediate thoughts on the game. Feel free to leave yours in the comment section below.
A great opening half an hour
It feels like a distant memory now but Town started this game playing beautiful, free-flowing football that saw us carving out chances with excellent movement and crisp passing in the final third. It was almost unthinkable that things would crumble from this stage and another 6-0 victory over Wycombe seemed a distinct possibility.
Credit needs to be given to Fraizer Campbell for his wonderful flying cutback to set up a simple header for Bacuna to score the opener. Mbenza also needs a pat on the back for taking advantage of his marker being stood off him a little bit too much and curling in a strike with his weaker foot that unexpectedly beat the keeper.
Town showed that they can really play nice stuff at the start of this game and while the opposition aren’t the best, we at least have proof that we can break down teams that are sitting deep and our attackers can create chances. So, as hard as it is to think it, there were some positives from the game which almost all came in this opening stage. Then it changed.
Taking our foot off their throat
I don’t know what changed but after the second goal Wycombe came into the game more. We seemed to take our foot off the gas when we attacked and left ourselves open to their direct play resulting in chances. The game, which had been almost exclusively played in Wycombe’s half, suddenly involved a lot of balls coming into our box and plenty of scrambled clearances from Town.
The game could have been won when we were 2-0 up. If we had kept on playing the way we started it’s likely we would have continued to carve open chances and scored even more. Alternatively, we could have changed tactics and looked to keep things tight and sit a bit deeper. Instead we did the worst of all possible options and lost our attacking intensity yet didn’t have the defensive shape to withstand their attacks.
There’s a real lack of killer instinct in this team which has repeatedly cost us this season. We have played lovely football in some matches but never for a full 90 minutes, rarely even for a full half. We retreat back into ourselves and allow our opponents to dictate the game when we most need to enforce our own control.
Concentration lapse just before half time
The goal, seconds before the half time whistle, was coming but could have been avoided with better concentration and defensive work from Town. It was, in fairness, a very good run and strike from the Wycombe midfielder but Vallejo gave him far too much space on the edge of the box and looked flat footed.
There’s no good time to concede goals but the old cliché about scoring just before half time being the worst time came true for Town. When we were 2-0 up against one of the weakest Championship teams in recent history (in terms of playing budget) then we should have sent them in at half time with their heads dropped on their minds on damage limitation. Instead they had pulled one back and they virtually sprinted off the field when the half-time whistle went because they were so up for it after their goal.
The second half was an absolute car crash for Town but the seeds were sown for that to happen by conceding just before half time. We gave them a path back into the game which is a habit that every team we play now knows we’re capable of and leads to all of our opponents knowing they always have a chance of getting something against us.
Reverting to the same old sloppy habits
If the opening of the first half saw some of the best bits of Town’s play this season, the opening of the second half saw some of the worst habits rearing their head. We messed around at the back, our midfield disappeared and our forwards weren’t able to carry the ball up field to relieve pressure.
So it was relatively simple for Wycombe, hyped up from their first goal, to keep pushing and pushing to force a mistake. If anything it was a surprise it took them so long but eventually their hard work paid off with Hogg making a completely unnecessary tackle on the excellent Ikpeazu and conceding a penalty.
While the penalty was a result of Hoggy making a silly decision, it wasn’t a fluke and came after Wycombe had enjoyed sustained pressure on Town’s goal and had been unlucky with a few attempts prior to their equaliser from the spot.
It feels like sour grapes to lay the blame exclusively at Town’s feet during this stage of the game because Wycombe were also excellent. My frustration is that we continued to play into their hands by being sloppy with the ball at the back and giving away needless fouls that gave them opportunity to terrorise us with set pieces.
Not asserting ourselves upon the game
I think the principle reason we lost this game and have lost so many other games this season is because we’re missing one key piece of the puzzle. Since Aaron Mooy left in the summer of 2019 we’ve not had a midfielder capable of controlling the tempo of games. We lack an intelligent midfielder that’s able to either slow the game down or speed it up depending on what we need at that moment.
In this game we needed to kill the game when we were 2-0 up, so this missing part of our team, if we had them, would have looked to slow the game down by getting their foot on the ball and making nice little triangle passing moves in safe areas of the pitch and frustrate the opposition. Then, when we’re desperately needing to get a goal they would get on the ball and ping cross-field passes to try and open up the play.
The pace that Town play at in most games seems almost completely random or, even worse, in the hands of our opponents. We can’t seem to speed things up when we chase the game and we leave ourselves far too open when we’re in winning positions and should be keeping it tight.
The difficulty is that a cultured, experienced and intelligent player that can do these things doesn’t come cheap. But the implication of not having someone to fulfil the role could be even more costly for Town.
A relegation battle beckons
Had Town won today it could have been the route back into midtable and put our recent run behind us. Instead we’re now right in the mix at the bottom end of the table and our recent results suggest we’re in free-fall.
I try to be relatively optimistic about Town’s chances but unless we address some of these ongoing issues, particularly the sloppy defending, then we’re in real trouble. Every team we play now knows that we will effectively roll over and let them tickle our bellies at least at some point in a game if not two or three times. It’s not just individual errors either, it’s a systematic failure to cope with sustained pressure on our backline.
With no obvious signs of Carlos changing his approach or philosophy, it’s going to need the players that are currently failing to suddenly get better. While that’s possible, it’s hard to see what’s going to make this change happen when we’ve been unable to address it all season up to now.
Town have four more matches before the end of the month and desperately need to turn around this awful run. While we’re still seeing signs of the football this team are capable of, we’re consistently shooting ourselves in the foot. All the nice football in the world will ultimately count for nothing if we allow other teams to roll us over as easily as Wycombe did today in the second half.
I rarely write blogposts straight after the game because I like to leave time for my opinions to settle. Today was so poor I felt like I needed to get down what I was thinking straight away so that may mean this article is less balanced than usual. I’ll write a more considered and rational post tomorrow.
I think the longer you think about this game, the worse it will seem. All your points are totally valid and the only way I can see things changing is with a new Manager. PH does everything on the cheap so I can’t see that changing any time soon, but if he always does what he always did, he will always get what he always got and that is freefall.
Looking at things a different way Wycombe had nothing to loose, Mbenza and hopefully never to play in the town shirt again Baccuna thought they were on a night out coming out for the second half. Overpaid not very good professional footballers not giving a 💩 ,not focussing on the fact that the opposition were back in the game. Don’t need to tell anyone looking at this site that the club has lost its way, not sure we can get it back on track anytime soon. But if Dean Hoyle is well enough it could be a idea to take back the reigns to get us to a bit of normality even if it is a short period of time.
But Dean Hoyle is the one that caused this disaster. He sold out to Hodgkinson so that he could get his money back from the parachute payments and transfer receipts. He backed the signings of Diakhaby, Bacuna, Mbenza, Pritchard etc. who are now lead weights on the wages bill. He was quite happy trundling along as chairman of an average Championship club and then out of the blue he suddenly found his team had been promoted to the Premier League (with a negative goal difference!) mainly because Town had Germans who could take penalties. It became a “be careful what you wish for” as suddenly he was playing with the billionaire owned clubs. His £390 million was second from the bottom of the wealth of the Premiership owners with next one up, £600 million and he just could not compete so after a rather lucky first season he was back down in the Championship the season after. His health had suffered so that’s when he decided to take the money and run. Unfortunately he appears to have sold out to a man who isn’t wealthy enough to own a Championship club. However it looks like that will be solved soon next season when Town play in League 1.
But the last time Hoyle was in charge we spent tens and tens of millions on 3 year contracts for players that have drained/are still draining us dry. Our second season in the Prem was a total disaster – an embarrassment. We are, literally, still paying for Hoyle’s “reign”.
Totally correct in what you say. The club is still paying, literally and figaritively, for the last years of his reign.
I am just lost for words. I have always thought that there are at least 3 teams worse than us. However after the performance today, I think we must be the worst team in the division. PH is not going to relinquish ownership, so no change at Board level. CC has just signed a 4 year contract, so I can’t see PH terminating his employment. I just cannot see where or how any improvement is coming from. I agree with all your comments and now believe that relegation is staring us in the face, and sadly I don’t think we have enough to escape it. What really annoys me however is that we have completely wasted the opportunity of a lifetime when we got to promised land.
So sad tonight.
Hodgkinson can’t “relinquish ownership” as he needs someone (Who??) to buy the club. The club probably can’t afford to sack Corberan because of the contract you mention but I can still see it happen. The kiss of death is for the owner to say he is “100%” behind the coach – then sack him. Just ask Jan Siewart. It would be a great loss of face for PH but we could do much worse than bring the Cowleys back – that is if they’d come.
I agree with what you say but it’s nothing different to what has been said for the last month and a half, after every game it’s same old same old, sorry today’s debacle was purely down to the manager I’m beginning to think he is out of his depth I hope I’m wrong but we loose one player & he plays our only box to box midfielder at left back & plays another defensive midfield in against a team that’s rock bottom, he never uses his subs & his reluctancy to change things around are appalling, every week we keep seeing him out managed which isn’t hard as it’s so predictable, we do have a team there more then capable of staying in this division but I don’t think CC is getting it right
But how do we get rid of someone who has probably got at least a £2.5 million contract.
Thanks John, At least he knew how to run the ship, in all probability the signings were made when the poor bloke was probably very ill. Not saying go back to where we were , but we need his input . And by the way could you have thought of anyone else who could have got us up to the premiership ? If so reveal the names.
Only one person to blame for the mess the club is in. That blame falls totally on PHs shoulders. In business if you can’t afford to do the deal you should walk away from it. Had he done so then DH would have been forced to leave his investment in the club or do what PH is now doing and use the parachute payments to recoup his money and in turn try and move out his expensive player failures. I’m not sure DH would or could have done that given he himself had enjoyed an ego trip overseeing the clubs rise to the premiership.
Everyone who ‘understands’ football knows that selling your investment / control of it is not easy if nigh on impossible (Mike Ashley at Newcastle springs to mind), so it must have been a gift from the gods that DH got a sucker like PH to take the club off his hands whilst at the same time getting all his money back.
Unfortunately the club is now suffering from PH taking over at the club without the personal financial resources to support it.
The blame rests totally with PH because he could have walked away from the deal. He chose not to giving DH the exit he wanted. Sadly, the football club, the town itself and most importantly the fans are now suffering the most. Let’s hope we don’t ‘do a Bolton’ but the signs are not that good given yesterday’s debacle.
I didn’t see the game as I am fed up with their performances, manager and owner included. Seems to me we recruit on the cheap, keep our fingers crossed hoping to just stay in the division. Not renew any contracts in the summer and yet again hope the lads in the reserves can do a job of sorts next season. Apart from the odd exception I can’t see them doing that, I am old enough to remember a similar scenario in the 70’s.
the seccond half was poor thefirst half overall good. that is fact.now we are on a very poor run its change the manager the same people who were singing his praises earlier when we were getting results. thge problem is not the coach he in my view should be kept on but there is no doubt abd i certainly take in to account the injuries we have had and still have the players have now to stand up and be counted we do not lack effort but i dont think we have enough mental strengh in the side. no way are we down yet and with 54 points to play for there will be many twists yet so we move on and as been said on other sites the chairman has to stay strong and back his coach.
The turning point yesterday was the penalty, once it was scored every Town fan knew what would happen, the thing was, who told Hogg he could defend in his own penalty area, the Wycombe coach and players must have been laughing all the way home, we need a Peter Jackson or Mark Lillis to come in and give the players a lecture on playing for Huddersfiel Town, as David said before me there are 54 points to play for yet, and 30 before the new year was not a fluke, but the change in first team faces have with all the injuries been devastating, but when we can lead 2-0 at home and still lose is another thing entirely, just hope someone can come up with something quick or our worst fears will come true.
Fair post David but I don’t see lack of effort just a soft centre and the players are capable of much more than they showed in the second half when you are struggling you need work horses all over the pitch not show ponys
We didn’t play with any convidence or pressure even when 2 – 0 up.
Is it possible to send manager and his coaches on loan ?
Town already were in the relegation battle before this game, now we must be odds-on favourites to go down (together with Wycombe and Birmingham). At least unless something changes immediately – and Corberán appears to be a man who has no intention of changing anything come what may: He even pretty much promised Middlesbrough that they’ll get a wide open right-hand side to play down on Tuesday, by saying he intends to stick to O’Brien as left-back. A decision which in itself must be among the worst he has taken this year (second only to letting Hamer leave, I’d say). But stubbornly sticking to even bad choices unfortunately is Corberán’s hallmark. I still think he’s an excellent coach, but his inflexibility will be his downfall. And the club’s.