A sloppy start, ifs and buts, howlers and the managerial dress code – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 3-1 defeat at Barnsley

Town tasted defeat for the second time this season when they lost 3-1 to Barnsley on Saturday. There were a few reasons that this game went the wrong way for the Terriers but Owen Goodman’s error for the opener and the rash challenge that led to his red card were the principal reasons we lost. 

Barnsley were surprisingly good and deserved the win. They played a similar system to Town’s but did it better. Obviously this was made easier by playing ten men but they also dominated the game when Town had a full complement of players on the pitch. 

Here are a few of my thoughts on the game. 

A sloppy start 

Before I get to the red card, I want to cover how badly Town started this game. We looked half asleep and Barnsley were completely outplaying us. Far too many players weren’t at their best and we looked shell shocked by how well Barnsley were playing. 

Lee Grant always talks about the need for the team to work hard to get anything from games but during this opening passage, we looked like we didn’t want it as much as Barnsley. And they also looked technically better than us, particularly in midfield where Kane and Ledson struggled to get a foothold in the game. 

So far this season, Town have typically played their best football in the second half of games and our worst moments have been in the first half. The sample size is small but we’ve conceded five goals in the first halves of our league games and only conceded one in the second half. Similarly, we’ve only scored three goals in the first halves of our league games and eight have come in the second halves. 

Maybe there’s a deliberate tactic to try and keep games tight in the first half, so we can push on to win the game in the closing stages. Perhaps our superior fitness and strong bench options mean we’re naturally finishing games stronger than we start them. Or perhaps something is being put into the half time cups for tea. Whatever it is, we might want to try playing the first half of the next game like it’s the second half, as on Saturday the game was pretty much lost before the second half began. 

We need to talk about Owen

This game will always be remembered for Owen Goodman’s mistakes. The first was his spilling of the ball when collecting a routine cross. The ball bounced in front of him, which seemed to throw him off but it was still an embarrassing mistake. 

Goodman’s red card was foreshadowed earlier in the game when he raced off his line and successfully collected a loose ball but looked to have been out of his area when handling the ball. The officials didn’t notice it though, so we got away with it but there was the first sign that he wanted to rectify his earlier mistake a bit too much. 

The red card looked harsh in real time, as it seemed like Goodman had rushed out at such speed that he missed the ball and most of the player. The replays are damning though and there’s no realistic defence for his actions. It’s even more confusing when you see the positions of the defenders. OK he wanted to make up for his error, but this was like feeling bad for dropping a plate at a friend’s house and then trying to clean up the mess with a chainsaw. 

What does this mean for Goodman? I’m not sure. Obviously he’s out of contention for the next three games while serving his ban (presuming the red was for violent conduct, lesser offences get a one match ban but that seems unlikely). If Nicholls comes in for these games and impresses it will give Lee Grant a tricky decision to make. Goodman is his first choice and has been good in all but this one and the Blackpool game. And at Blackpool it was more wondering if he should have done better rather than the kind of errors he made in this game. 

Goodman is a young keeper, encouraged to play in a risky way, so I expected him to make mistakes in some matches. Though I think the decision making for the red card offence is concerning and he needs to learn from this experience. Whether he’ll walk back in the team will depend on both how Nicholls performs and whether Lee Grant has changed his opinion about Goodman. Grant has already confirmed there’s no clause in the loan agreement compelling him to play Goodman, so Nicholls can become first choice. However, if Goodman isn’t getting many games we can probably expect him to be recalled early. 

A game of ifs and buts

Going down to ten men doesn’t mean you’ve already lost the game, as we found out against Blackpool. But our task was much harder than the Seasiders’, because we were behind and had to get something out of the game. Blackpool already had the lead and just had to sit tight until the final whistle. 

While the result obviously didn’t go our way, I don’t think Town played too badly with ten men. The tricky balance was in having enough players committed forward to pose a threat without leaving big gaps at the back. We did this job pretty well but conceded at the worst possible times (not that there are good times to let goals in). 

The second goal came just before half time and while it was only conceded because of a horrible deflection, the situation that allowed for a shot at the edge of the box was mostly down to Barnsley grinding us down. The aggressiveness of our press had faded as Barnsley teased us with possession and we slackened out pace. This gave those little half-yard spaces they needed to work the ball into dangerous areas. So the goal was unlucky but we’d lost our foothold in the game for a short spell which allowed it to come. Had we gone in at half time only 1-0 down… but we didn’t.

The third goal was the nail in the coffin of the game, as we had pushed hard to make it 2-1 in the second half but hadn’t been able to create the moment of something special to get back into the game. With 85 minutes gone, their third meant the game was over.  

It says something about the determination and resolve of our players that we kept pushing anyway despite the game being over as a contest, which led to Taylor latching onto some shabby passing and getting a consolation goal. Had our luck gone differently in this game, that could have been an equaliser or at least got us close to getting something out of the game. 

Worcester1 commented on a different post that this was a game of ifs and buts, which feels very true. Sadly, in the end, Town left themselves with too much to do and paid the price for uncharacteristic mistakes. Though it also has to be said that Barnsley were a good team on the day too, which meant they were able to capitalise on the generosity we showed them. 

What does this mean for Town’s season?

Even though our opening run of fixtures has included two quite damning defeats, in this game and Blackpool away, our other four victories leaves us with 12 points from six games. This means that I can work out our points per game without needing a calculator and even better, it puts us on course for a 92 point tally by the end of the season if we kept up this rough pattern of winning two and losing one. 

Last season’s second place team, Wrexham, finished with exactly 92 points. As did Derby the season before, who also finished second. The season before that, Sheffield Wednesday finished third with 96 points and needed Darren Moore to guide them up through the playoffs. The point I’m making though, is that we’ve still had a good start and aren’t miles off where we need to be. 

The more important thing is that we need to see progress in terms of all-round performance, responding to adversity and creating opportunities for our strikers. We’re in the strange position of showing a lot of promise but equally showing some vulnerabilities. We’re currently Shrodinger’s football team, it’s not entirely clear whether we’re looking at a team that’s going to be successful or one that will tantalise in moments but fall short in others. I honestly don’t know what this season has in store for Huddersfield Town but so far I’m enjoying the ride, which is more than could be said for many of our other recent seasons. 

Any other business

This is my new section on these write ups where I waffle one about the not-quite-football stuff that goes on around a football game. It’s odds and ends that bounce around in my head if I don’t write them down.

• The Town fans were the Man of the Match – The cliche goes that the fans are like a 12th man to a team. If that’s the case, then I’d give a player rating of 10 to the Town fans and make them Man of the Match. Regardless of being behind in the game and having a man sent off, they were the dominant voice in the stadium all the way through the game. And while managers and players will always pay lip service to how good travelling fans are, I got the feeling “the group” were genuinely impressed and touched by the backing they received from fans during a difficult game. Last season there would have been boos from the away end, the fact there was relentless positivity shows things are changing at Huddersfield Town.
• Manager dress code – The era I started watching football in had two types of manager. The tracksuit manager and the suit manager. You could either look like you’ve ram raided the club shop or that you’ve got a court appearance straight after the game. Now managers look like they’re hoping to escape the football world to pick up work modelling for the Next Catalogue. Both Grant and Hourihane went for a smart casual look in this game which I think is meant to signal being part of a new generation of managers that do things differently. If I’m honest, I’d rather go back to the days of Arsene Wenger wearing the Arsenal sleeping bag as a coat on the touchline.
• New arrivals imminent – I’m writing this on the morning of transfer deadline day and the rumour mill suggests Town will be bringing in some new faces. I’ll not go into specifics as things are likely to move fast today and this will be old news. It’s pretty clear that we’re not far off with our squad but there are a few gaps that could do with filling. It’ll also be interesting to see if we sanction any exits, as the likes of Freddie Ladapo, Bojan Radulovic and Dion Charles most likely want to get more minutes than they have so far this season.