Boo-boys, bad goals, Wagner tactics, man marking exploited, depth of a puddle and effort concerns – notes on Huddersfield Town’s defeat to Norwich

Huddersfield Town were beaten 4-0 by Norwich on Saturday in a game which saw Town repeatedly scupper their chances of success by conceding soft goals to a team that didn’t need any extra help in getting the better of the Terriers. As the scoreline suggests, Norwich were the better team on the day by a distance. The scoreline is perhaps more emphatic than the balance of play might have suggested but then again, if you fail to take your chances and your opponent is clinical with theirs, these are the kind of scorelines you end up with.

Here are some of my thoughts on the game. (Apologies it’s taken a while to get them out to you.)

Bad goals

I won’t go into forensic detail of each goal, but they each had elements of self-sabotage to them. The opener was particularly painful to watch, Hoggy and Nicholls are the two players that should be the most reliable on the pitch and they conspired to gift Sargent a goal that was purely the reward of hard work and a willingness to put his body on the line (though I think his resulting injury was bad luck rather than any malice from Nicholls, as I’ve heard some Norwich fans suggest). 

The penalty felt a little soft but I think the whole situation was a symptom of the panic Rowe was causing down the whole right flank during the first half. Edwards looked like he wanted to cry at one stage, as he was being run absolutely ragged by Norwich’s talented winger. 

Norwich’s movement for the third and fourth goal was pretty good but our marking and positioning was poor. We were chasing the game and committing players forward, but it felt too easy for Norwich to move the ball about quickly and find gaping holes in our back line. 

A for effort isn’t enough

Neil Warnock was quite defensive of his players after the game, saying he couldn’t fault their effort. Which I don’t think I would disagree with but that’s perhaps a bigger concern. If we’re giving our maximum in games and still coming up short (well short in this particular game) then it’s a bit of a worry.

Hopefully this game was a freak result against a very good team but it will quickly become dispiriting if we are playing at our full potential every week but still losing most of the time. 

As the league doesn’t award points for effort, we’re going to have to find a way to start getting the better of teams. It’s still very early in the season and we’ve Wiles to come in, new players may be arriving in the next few days and Neil Warnock is a seasoned campaigner who knows how to get the most out of any given situation. But it’s a bit concerning that we have tried our best and come up short in most of our games so far this season.

Wagner’s Norwich look better than Wagner’s Huddersfield Town

In a strange way, I quite enjoyed watching Norwich play on Saturday, because it reminded me so much of how Huddersfield Town used to play under David Wagner. Little things, like the central defenders splitting and standing almost on the touchline for goal kicks, the way the full backs bomb forward and the wingers become inside forwards, it all felt very familiar. 

The biggest difference was the players at Wagner’s disposal at Norwich are, on the whole, better than those he had when he was Town manager. I never enjoy watching Town lose but it was about as close as I’ll ever come to enjoying watching an opponent outplaying us. 

One thing that was quite galling about Norwich’s play was how much effort they put in off the ball, which was another trademark of Wagner’s time at Town. They were relentless in their pressing of Town and we struggled to string passes together in the face of their pressure. While it’s easy to pick on our players for their poor composure, it’s worth recognising that the opposition play a part in creating the conditions for us to struggle.

It’ll be interesting to see how Norwich do from here, they’ve had a great start to the season and based on this performance, I’d expect them to be competing for automatic promotion. However, when Town were at their absolute best under David Wagner, his system often didn’t produce enough shots on target or goals even if we completely dominated games and blew opponents off the park in terms of the balance of play – I wonder if his Norwich team could end up being similar, as despite scoring four past us, we registered more shots than them and the same number of shots on target.

Man marking exploited 

Neil Warnock is one of the few remaining fans of man marking in football management, as most opt for the more conventional zonal method or a hybrid approach where you only man mark the most dangerous players. Norwich seemed to have a bit of fun with our man marking system, with their players seeming to be deliberately going on little jogs, to go hugely out of position, to test how far their marker was willing to go out of position. 

With Norwich pulling our defenders all over the pitch with their movement off the ball, it became hard for us to keep our shape at times and communication between the Town players was tense at times as there was confusion over whether to follow their men or stay in position – Edwards was probably the most guilty, as he seemed like he’d lost the plot for about ten minutes before the end of the first half (though Sorba’s motivational technique of shouting at him until he improved didn’t seem to help).

I think man marking is actually a fine tactic to use most of the time as the individual responsibility players have means everyone knows their job and it makes it much easier to organise a team and can be hard to break down. There perhaps has to be a limit to how far a player goes out of position when chasing the player they’re marking before they pass them off to a colleague to avoid getting tied up in knots. 

Booing Danny Ward was harsh

I’ve already commented in previous articles that I don’t think Danny Ward is playing well this season and his performance against Norwich didn’t do a lot to change that opinion. But that didn’t mean I was among the small but significant number of Town fans that booed him as he was subbed off in the second half in this match. 

I think it was unfair to give him this kind of treatment for a lacklustre but hardly boo-worthy outing up front. I know Danny Ward has become the designated whipping boy for many fans this season but I’d agree with Neil Warnock when he defended him after the match by saying he was not the reason we conceded four goals.

It’s also overly simplistic to think a new striker will fix the problem thar we’ve only scored two in our opening four games. We unquestionably need a new striker but the problem is bigger than that, as the team need to be playing in a way that gives the striker a chance of scoring too.

Ward is on a hiding to nothing with the way we’re currently playing, as he’s getting almost no service in most games and he’s having to feed off scraps. I think that’s why Warnock has mentioned wanting a big target man, so we have someone who can thrive on their own up top when we need to play that way.

Don’t expect wholesale changes for West Borm

It’s easy to think that a heavy defeat like this one will lead to a huge number of changes to the starting eleven, given we’ve lost four and drawn one of our first five games this season (admittedly one was in the cup and more or less threw that one away). However, if you piece together the bits Neil Warnock has said in his press conferences about the fringe players, he’s more or less confirmed that he doesn’t think they are many that will be starting games soon.

Here’s a run down of what he’s said:

Delano Burgzorg – He’s not capable of leading the line as a lone striker, so is likely to only play as either a strike pairing or down the sides of a front three. Even then, Warnock said he’s currently not fit enough to play from the start.

Kyle Hudlin – Another striker that Warnock has said he doesn’t think can play up front on his own. He didn’t go into specifics but my guess would be because he’s not mobile enough to cover the ground needed to press from the front as a lone striker. 

David Kasumu & Tom Lees – Both injured. Lees definitely won’t be available until after the international break and Kasumu is doubtful for the West Brom game.

Yuta Nakayama – Fit again but is still making small defensive lapses which makes Warnock reluctant to trust him in league matches. He’s also not sure of how he fits in the current setup, as accommodating him would either mean dropping a reliable player or changing formation. (Personally I think he’s best as the left of a three-man central defence.)

Jaheim Headley – Was apparently meant to feature in the league game after the Carabao Cup game but his red card and suspension ruled him out. Since then he’s been limited to appearances from the bench and I get the feeling that the red card incident left Warnock feeling like he couldn’t trust Headley (he confirmed that he gave him a “rollicking” after the game for picking up the red card).

Rarmani Edmonds-Green – I don’t recall hearing any specific criticism about REG from Warnock but he was in the first-choice starting eleven for most of preseason but looked well off the pace in the Plymouth game and has fallen down the pecking order since. 

Pat Jones – Despite looking dangerous whenever he comes on the pitch, it seems that there are limitations on the number of minutes he can play without risking further injury to the young winger. For now it seems like he’s limited to the role of impact sub. It’s not clear how long we’ll have to wait until he can start games, but he looks to have the ability to compete for a starting place when he’s fully fit.

That leaves Kian Harratt and Ben Wiles as potential options that haven’t been effectively ruled out already. It’s fairly well known how much Warnock rates Ward, and I think he may have similar concerns about Harratt’s ability to play as a lone striker as he does about Hudlin (though Harrat is more mobile and able to run the channels more). 

So, all of the above is my long-winded way of saying, don’t expect big changes against West Brom. At least from the start. While it’s tempting to make big changes to the lineup, it’s not automatically true to say “they can’t be any worse” as often the backup players are a significant step down from the first choice and making changes can weaken the team too much.

Hopefully we’ll sign a few new faces and they’ll come straight into the starting eleven, as that seems the most likely way to make a positive improvement to the team.