Despite getting a draw against one of the league’s better teams on Saturday, I was left with a bitter taste after sitting through the game. Despite Town’s respectable league position, alarm bells are ringing for many fans and it feels like we’re a team on the slide.
Coventry played fairly well but most teams would have when their opponent allowed them so much time on the ball and space to get away shots at will. Had Coventry been slightly clinical with their finishing we could have been hammered in this game. Though if Matty Pearson had nodded home his straightforward chance in the second half we would almost certainly have gone on to win, so it’s not worth dwelling on hypothetical too much.
Here are a few more of my thoughts on the game:
Defending a lead badly
The thing I found most frustrating about this game was how obviously flawed it was to try and cling on to a single-goal lead. The equaliser didn’t come as a shock but the inevitable conclusion to Coventry’s growing pressure on the Town goal. The only surprise was that they scored so late there wasn’t enough time remaining for them to push on and get the winner they deserved.
Town have been poor in recent weeks, so it beggars belief that we decided to show almost no ambition going forward once we had our goal. Prior to Ward’s clinical finish the game was open but Town were playing the better football and looked decent. After we scored, everything froze up and nobody seemed interested in getting forward very much. Some teams are superb at getting their noses in front and killing off games but Town, at the moment, don’t have the character or confidence for this kind of approach.
After the game Carlos said we didn’t attack enough in the second half and that’s why we didn’t win. I don’t know if this was an admission of his own excessive caution or a confession that he can’t influence the players on the pitch and it was the players that decided to be so cautious. Neither of these options reflects well on Corberán and I worry about where our season is going.
Stale tactics and selections
Early in the season we stumbled into the 3-4-3 system and it helped keep things tight at the back, allowed Thomas to shine at wingback and gave us enough big players on the pitch to be lethal at set pieces. Now it looks overly negative, Thomas is badly out of form and the set piece goals have dried up (possibly due to a recent obsession with blasting the ball to the near post most of the time).
Town haven’t scored two goals in a game for around a hundred years now and create very few chances in most games. Adjusting the tactics or changing the personnel on the pitch seem to be the obvious ways to make us more of a threat going forward but we see the same pool of players used for almost every game.
Mipo and Aarons might be rubbish but no fans can say that for sure because neither have been given much of a chance yet this season. The same can be said for Jon Russell, who was promoted from the B Team to cover Hogg and Vallejo but instead High is played in a position he’s not suited to and we continue to look lightweight in midfield.
Carlos’ faith in his core group of players and 3-4-3 formation may pay dividends in the long run but at the moment it feels like we’ve been found out by other Championship teams and the players that did well early on this season are collectively off the boil.
A little bit of ambition could go a long way this season
Based on the teams I’ve seen Town face so far, this season’s Championship is one of the weakest there have been in many years. Outside of Bournemouth and Fulham there are few teams with genuine quality. Town certainly don’t have much quality but have still been able to pick up some decent results up until recently.
If Town had a bit more ambition and one or two more decent players then this season could be very different. I think avoiding the relegation scrap and finishing in midtable obscurity is the best we can hope for but it could so easilybe better than that.
We’re currently only five points from the playoffs and with the January window approaching it could have been a cause for optimism. However, the situation with Phil Hodgkinson means it’s incredibly unlikely we’ll see the kind of season defining signing that a more solvent owner might be willing to finance under the circumstances.
If Town had a player with the ability to control the tempo of a game from the middle of the park in the way Mooy did in our promotion season then it’s possible we could be a genuinely decent team in this league. But that’s not likely to happen and therefore we’ll continue to struggle to properly control games.
Is it a blip, a slump or a crisis?
From the outside I can imagine other football fans would think that it’s a bit daft to be booing the team off and calling for the manager’s head when we were widely tipped for relegation and currently sit comfortably midtable.
The worry is more about our performances than our results. The football is tedious and unambitious now and it mostly was even when we were picking up wins early in the season. The lack of creativity and sparsity of goals in open play are both long term problems that have got worse rather than better.
I genuinely don’t know whether this recent run of poor results is a short term blip or a symptom of a long term rot but I’m concerned. The fact we’re repeating the same mistakes over and over is a worry. On the other hand, if we win two games in a row then everything will suddenly feel fine again.
Throwing away leads isn’t our biggest problem
Recently, Town have dropped many points from winning positions and I thought we must be among the worst in the league for this habit but the stats didn’t back up this instinct. The Transfermarkt website has a table of points earned after taking the lead in games and it shows Town have taken the lead in 13 games from which we’ve won eight, drawn three and lost two. This isn’t an amazing record but it’s far from the worst when compared to other Championship teams. For example, Derby have taken the lead in 12 of their games and only won five of them.
The area where Town really stand out is when you look at how often Town have taken points when they’ve fallen behind in games. We’ve fallen behind in games on nine occasions and in those games we’ve lost eight and drawn one. Most Town fans would have known this instinctively without looking up the numbers as it always feels like you might as well go home once Town go behind as we so rarely claw our way back into games.
This disparity between points dropped after taking the lead compared to points gained when falling behind suggests there’s a problem with the character of this current crop of Town players. They’re too nervous when they get their noses in front (as we saw on Saturday) but they fall to pieces when the other teams takes the lead.
I think part of our current malaise is down to missing the organisational and leadership skills of Hogg in the middle of the field but it doesn’t say much about the rest of the squad that one player getting injured turns the team into a quivering mess.
Having a viable Plan B may also be a factor in our inability to fight back in games. Too often we plug away at the same system regardless of whether we’re behind or ahead, too often hoping patient build up play will pay off. I don’t like route one football all of the time but sticking on a big lad and putting it in the mixer is a football cliché because it works often enough for most clubs to resort to it when you’re chasing a game and time is running out. Too often we lose games with a whimper rather than battling to get something, like we saw Coventry do against Town at the weekend.
It’s not time to sack Calros but boardroom strife means it won’t happen anyway
Despite grumbling at length in this article, I don’t think it’s time to sack Carlos, like many fans were suggesting after Saturday’s game. While he’s not a footballing messiah and clearly has made plenty of mistakes in his time as head coach so far, he’s also not doing too badly with a squad that few other coaches would be able to get more from.
The thing I’m disappointed with about Carlos is his failure to deliver the attacking, relentless kind of football he helped coach while he was at Leeds. The dream we were sold when he first arrived was that he could take average players and get them playing beautiful football but after last season’s capitulation we’ve seen a lurch towards pragmatic and often dull football that often grinds out positive results but rarely sets pulses racing.
I’m not going to lie and say Corberán is doing a fantastic job but his record so far this season means he’s earned the right to keep plugging away at whatever he’s doing. It may be that he has a long term vision that will see a return to attacking football once he’s able to get the right players in the squad.
Regardless of Carlos’ performance, I really can’t see anyone sacking him anyway. Who would make the call? Surely not Phil Hodgkinson, who it sounds like is chairman in name only while he attends to his crumbling businesses. I also can’t see Hoyle being in a rush to change things as he’ll most likely have to pay compensation out of his own pocket to the current coaching team.
If the rumours are to be believed, we may see a new owner come in soon and they may have different ideas about what Town should be doing. If so then Carlos may find he needs to show a bit more nous to keep hold of his job. Few chairman would have been as patient as Phil was during Town’s horrible second half to last season. If our current struggles continue for long and a new owner comes in then I can easily imagine Carlos quickly coming under pressure, particularly if fans continue to boo the players and coaches off the field at the end of games.
You make some very interesting comments TS – I for one have missed you. Most of your points I agree with. I would add that in far too many games this season I have felt the opposition have been the better side and have played the type of football I would like Town to play: Blackburn; Luton; Peterborough and Coventry immediately spring to mind in games that we did not lose, there are obviously many others when we did lose.
Sadly I will forever disagree with you about Hogg, his passing and lack of mobility were an embarrassment in the Premiership and he is now considerably older; he is a ball watcher not a strategist although he has got a booking in him and a “gob” on him.
I also believe that O’Brien has just the one win as captain?
If you’re interested I wrote this in response to one of the articles in the Examiner on Saturday:
One cracking goal and the odd good move but apart from that Town were second best to a good side, but are regularly second best regardless of the opposition’s quality. The passing standard was dreadful, as usual, the regularity with which possession ceded reminiscent of many games this season; the set up with three centre backs should almost guarantee dominance at set pieces – it didn’t – on numerous occasions. Who was supposed to be marking Coventry’s top scorer Godden when he scored? A stream of like-for-like or defensive substitutions made to protect an undeserved lead – that went down well and failed. It is unsurprising that the crowd vent their frustration at the negativity on show.
In most games the opponent has far more freedom and space in which to operate because of the defensive setup, lack of creativity and/or more probably the mind set, today was no exception. What happened to the style of football we were going to enjoy? For the most part there is no joy watching Town at the moment.
It has been very pleasant to have heightened expectations this season, to reside in the upper echelons of the table after the misery of the previous three and a half seasons, but these expectations are being smashed into oblivion, sadly I can see us descending into the customary relegation battle after Christmas.
I too am worried about a drop down the congested table, it doesn’t take too many dropped points to be near the drop. I agree Town’s passing has been atrocious in lots of games and we have been lucky to win some of them. Central defense has improved this season, but defending from the wings hasn’t. Toffolo may be good at going forward, but worse than average at cutting out crosses. If Nichols gets injured, HELP.
Coberan doesn’t seem to know when to change a team before a match , never mind during. He keeps playing out of form players, stick them in the B team to regain confidence, we keep dropping points ‘cos his head is in the sand !
Spot on, another excellent and accurate summary. I agree entirely. We are so light weight in midfield and just don’t look like scoring from open play.
I don’t think there can be any dispute about Hoggs value to the it was the same last year as this if Hogg does not play we don’t win. With regards to needing another ball playing midfielder which we obviously do. Though in my opinion we could get Glen Hoddle in his prime and our forwards could still not hit a cows arse with a banjo and there lack of movement means the midfielders task is a very tough one.
Two quality player would transform the season a talented midfielder who Hogg can give the ball to,and a tall quick mobile forward who can hold the ball up and bring Rhodes and Ward into the game. With regard to the Manager I think he is completely out of his depth and should go.
Carlos Carboran is out of his depth in this league and it’s time he called it the end ,I am sure John Worthington could do a better job until the end of the season at least he knows Huddersfield Town football club and what the supporters want . You can’t play football and win by defending a one goal lead from early on and expect to win .
Asking for the manager’s head on a plate as soon as things start to go downhill is pretty standard for football fans, but rather silly too: Corberán was employed to carry out a 3-year plan (survival, mid-table, playoff push), so firing him after 1.5 years would be strange, in particular since the team by all accounts are ahead of that schedule (and way ahead of all predictions for this season).
However, we were promised attacking and free-flowing football, but have mainly seen backing and slow-moving play. I think I can count five games in 18 months where Town have played exciting football (the wins over Millwall and Derby last October, the wins against Reading and Blackpool this season, and oddly the loss against Bristol City in January… any more?). So unless we see any progress in late January / early February, I’d say CC should be worried about his job – or maybe not, depending on whether the ownership situation is still in limbo at that time.
What’s very surprising is that everybody except CC seems to be able to spot the large Hogg-shaped hole between the midfield and the defence. High and O’Brien are doing well, but the gap is there for all opponent team analysts to look at. Adding another player in midfield would be an easy fix, playing 3-5-2 instead (or rather something like 3-1-4-1-1). With both Hogg and Vallejo out, the DM role can still be filled by High (who’s played there before, but now rather plays side-by-side with LOB), Austerfield (who excelled there in last year’s preseason but has been rooted in the B team since), and probably Russell or even Colwill.
Great post and great comments too – this is why we come here.
My worry is that Carlos says he was unhappy with how the team hasn’t pushed on from 1-0 to 2-0 and beyond in any of the recent games. He wants more attacking football. And yet… his players aren’t delivering. But he isn’t changing them. Are Grant and Russell on the brink? Or will our Christmas fayre be as stale as turkey in January?
The rollercoaster continues. UTT.