Burnley extend Huddersfield Town’s misery – What next for the terriers?

Huddersfield Town lost by two goals to one in a match that was spoilt by Christopher Schindler’s red card in the first half. Until that point the Terriers had shown some promise, creating chances and committing players forward when we attacked.

The defeat leaves Town eight points from safety and makes relegation feel almost certain, despite there being 17 games left to play. The points gap is big, but the gulf in quality between Town and rest of the league seems even bigger as Town extend their losing streak to eight games.

The Schindler red card

I don’t have any complaints about the decisions to award yellow cards for the two reckless challenges Schindler committed, but I do have a problem with the way the first card was handed out.

From the stands it wasn’t clear whether Mike Dean had booked Schindler for his first foul, at least from where I was sat. So much so that I brought up the BBC Sports app to check and their statistician seemed equally confused as it showed a yellow initially and when I looked a second later it vanished from the screen. Schindler’s outrage at the red card as he went off was purely down to the fact he had no idea he’d received the first yellow.

I can understand why refs don’t want a mass debate on the pitch for every decision, so it’s fair enough to book a player and get the game going again quickly. It’s completely unfair, however, to flash a card so quickly that a player doesn’t even see it and doesn’t know they’re on a knife-edge for the rest of the game.

Ultimately, Schindler is to blame for his red card as he was the person that committed the fouls, but I feel a bit aggrieved about the refereeing. It’s hard to know how the game would have panned out without the red, but it would have made Town’s job much easier to have kept 11 players on the pitch.

The switch to 4-2-3-1 yielded results

After the dour tactical system Town played away to Fulham, it was a relief to see us playing a more attacking formation and with proper wingers pushing up the field. The tactical change was coupled with a more aggressive approach from Town, with most players looking to play the ball forward early and start attacks off rather than tapping it around at the back.

The red card put a spanner in the works, and our commitment to attacking football left us vulnerable at the back, but it was good to see Town showing real purpose when they went forward. Pritchard looked a far better player for having wingers to link up and interchange with, and was unlucky to sacrificed after the red card in favour of a more defensive player.

It was also great to see Mounié break his goal drought thanks to an excellent cross from Mbenza. This goal was far more likely to happen with proper wingers giving width, and the quality of the ball in was superb, giving Mounié an absolute gift, which he finished emphatically.

I worry that we’ll only see this 4-2-3-1 system against teams that play with a four-man defence, as David Wagner had tended to try to match our formation to the opposition this season. I’d prefer to see us play the way we want to play, rather than react to other teams, but Wagner’s post-match comments suggested this tactical change was specifically chosen to compete with Burnley’s 4-4-2 rather than a change in tactical philosophy.

Another bad night for Flo

I don’t like signalling out specific players for criticism but it’s hard to talk about this game without mentioning Hadergjonaj’s performance. I’m a big fan of him and know he can play better, but he was poor against Burnley. Every time their young left-winger moved forward it seemed to cause Flo to panic and back pedal furiously.

Burnley’s equaliser was an awful goal to concede, given how easily Flo was beaten, although he wasn’t so much beaten by his man as gave up on even trying to stop the cross. He just backed off and backed off. Nobody wants to see players jumping into challenges and giving away fouls, but to put up no resistance at all is incredibly weak.

It’s unfortunate that Tommy Smith’s injury has reduced competition for the right-back slot, but given Durm’s ability to play on either side and Löwe’s reliability, it feels like it would be a good idea to give Flo some time away from the pressure of the Premier League and let him build his confidence back up.

What next for Town?

I think it’s probably a good time to stop looking at the league table and instead focus on other things. The first priority is to break this horrendous losing streak and in the process get our points total over the record-low 11 points threshold set by Derby in the 2007/08 season.

We also need to avoid the record Premier League losing streak set by Sunderland after they lost 15 consecutive games in the 2002/03 season. We’re currently on eight games in a row of defeats, so there’s plenty of time for us to avoid setting that rather embarrassing record.

Rather than even thinking about survival at this point it would be better for the team to think about self-respect and being able to hold their heads high. Recent performances might make that hard, so turning our form around and improving our performances is vital. Even if you forget about avoiding relegation, we don’t want to go into next season with a squad of players that are in the habit of losing most weeks.

This weekend’s game against Bristol City in the FA Cup presents a good opportunity to turn the current narrative around and get back to winning ways. It won’t be an easy game, but a victory could be the first step to climbing out of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into since the Wolves game, which now seems so long ago.