Playing on a Friday and Monday night doesn’t give much time between games, so I’m going to look back at the Peterborough game and forward to the Forest game at the same time. If the turnaround between games isn’t enough for this blogger to recover then it’s likely the same can be said of the players’ legs too, so I suspect we’ll see a significantly changed team against Forest.
Anyway, after a weekend of results going very well for Town, we find ourselves sat in the automatic promotion spots and one game away from a mouth-watering fixture against Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter finals. So things are going incredibly well for Town at the moment.
Another easy victory
Just like the Birmingham game last weekend, the Peterborough game was an easy victory for the Terriers and the opposition were particularly poor. I’m not really sure what kind of team they’re trying to be but whatever it was, they aren’t very good at it. Town were allowed such control of the game that we blew them away in the first twenty minutes and then coasted through the rest.
The Championship is famously the league with no easy games but we’ve somehow managed to have another one. I thought Birmingham were doomed after the way they played last weekend but given how poor Peterborough, Reading and Barnsley have been this season it’s possible they’ll be safe because there are teams worse than them (Town have avoided relegation in similar circumstances in the past).
While Peterborough were not good, it is to Town’s credit that they took them to pieces efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. We played some lovely football at times and finished our chances well. The confidence in the Town squad is there for all to see and they have become a team that can brush aside weak opposition easily. This is something I’ve not seen from Town since the League One days. Even in the promotion season of 2016/17 we tended to scrape narrow victories rather than boss games.
Town and Carlos have blossomed as this run has continued
At the start of this unbeaten run there were serious discussions about Carlos’ future at Town. The football was boring to watch at times and it felt like Carlos didn’t know what he was doing. Those criticisms sound daft now but the concerns were real and even more moderate voices, such as the reporters at The Examiner, were suggesting Carlos was under serious pressure to turn things around.
The run Town have gone on since is nothing short of remarkable. Lee Clark’s unbeaten run was a great achievement but that came in League One with a budget and a squad that was good enough to compete at a higher level. It was also marred by far too many draws against weak opponents. I believe the current unbeaten run is a more impressive feat under the circumstances and I think Carlos and his team have gone from strength to strength as the run has continued.
The confidence and swagger now present in this team means they go into every game feeling like they’re going to get something. That confidence never crosses over into arrogance though and this team’s willingness to out run and out fight their opponent is always a cornerstone of each game.
I say Carlos has grown as well over this run because he’s become much more tactically adventurous. We’ve seen Town park the bus against Fulham, go toe–to–toe with Sheffield and completely dominate Birmingham and Peterborough and all of these three approaches have yielded results. The only time I think the tactics haven’t really gone to plan is when we played so openly against Reading away and won 4-3 in a game we might have expected to win comfortably but I’m saying it went wrong and we still won, so that shows how much we’ve come on.
Playoffs now seem likely rather than possible
Town have been in the top six for quite a while now but it’s always come with the asterix that games in hand going against us could lead to a slide into midtable. That’s not the case any more as Town have continued to pick up points and have solidified their place as genuine playoff contenders.
In fact, we’re now in a similar situation but with automatic promotion, as we occupy second but Bournemouth are likely to overtake us when they eventually catch up on the dozens of games in hand they have over us.
I don’t think it’s all that realistic that we’ll be able to secure an automatic promotion spot but I’m increasingly confident of a top six finish. If we can keep the points total ticking over then we should be able to achieve a top six finish and have a chance of going up through the playoffs. Not that I’m getting too carried away!
Lack of pressure helping Town and creating party mood
One of the things I’m enjoying most about this season is the lack of pressure on results right now. The unbeaten run has been incredible but most fans accept that it has to end at some time and nobody will be able to grumble when it eventually does come to an end.
The lack of expectations is paying off on the pitch too. The players don’t have any additional pressure on results and can just focus on each game as it comes. The team can play with freedom because they’re not thinking they have to get something out of every game. At this stage of the season tension can creep in if you start thinking about must win games and avoiding defeat at all costs. Town’s players can stroll onto the pitch and only worry about winning their individual battles and letting the results take care of themselves.
There’s a saying that the secret to a happy life is low expectations and while this may seem like a lack of ambition, I think Town’s current circumstance is a good example of how this can be true. Nobody expected much at all from Town this season yet here we are, pushing for promotion and without a defeat since late autumn. The low expectations are part of what makes the current achievements of this team so satisfying to watch.
Spare a thought for the moaners
I’ve long held a theory that some fans of teams like Huddersfield Town are in it for the misery. Not all fans, but a fairly chunky subsection of the support actively enjoy having something to have a good moan about their chosen team and that’s what appeals to them about football fandom. So it’s worth having a (very brief) moment of sympathy for the moaners within the Huddersfield Town fanbase.
Those people that have Carlos Out tweets already saved in their drafts folder ready to send the moment something goes wrong will no doubt be incredibly frustrated now. The haters that are looking for the first opportunity to boo the team off have been starved of opportunities. The grumblers that delight in saying just how rubbish Town are have nothing to grumble about.
While the majority of Town fans, myself included, are loving this period of unprecedented success for their club, there are a few fans out there that are being deprived of their usual release of venom that watching Town typically allows. These people are really suffering and will no doubt come out of the woodwork the second results turn against Town but for now they’ll have to satisfy themselves with trivial complaints.
Forest are good but so are we
Moving on to tonight’s game. Nottingham Forest present much stiffer opposition than Brimingham and Peterborough but Town are also a tough opponent and this game should be a good exhibition of Championship football.
Forest played us off the park when we played them at home earlier this season but our most recent encounter in January saw Town hold on to a narrow 1-0 lead and frustrate our opponents.
I’m not sure whether the gameplan will be to contain Forest and counter attack them or if we’ll look to dominate and outplay them but I feel that whatever the tactics we’ll give ourselves a chance of getting through to the next round.
I’ve seen some Forest fans commenting ahead of this game how they expect to just brush Town aside but that smacks of overconfidence. This will not be an easy game for either side and if any Forest players think the same as those fans then they’ll be in for a rude awakening when the game kicks off.
Cup still not the priority despite plum quarter final draw
Liverpool in the quarter finals represents a decent payday for Town and a great occasion, particularly given that we will play Liverpool if we’re successful tonight. But I still don’t believe Carlos when he talks about how important the cup is to him. It’s a sideshow and the league is the main event and I think his selection will reflect that.
The fact that this game comes so closely after the Peterborough game gives a ready excuse for heavily rotating the squad and giving a few second string players a chance tonight. Thankfully we’ve got enough players that are fit and available to come in that we shouldn’t see a huge drop off in quality. The likes of Ruffels, Pipa, Rhodes and Hogg are all more than capable of stepping into the team tonight and doing a good job.
If this were a league game I think the temptation would be to field a mostly unchanged side but for the cup Carlos has always used it as a chance to get competitive minutes into the legs of players that are out of the first choice eleven. I think that will continue tonight despite the prospect of a plum quarter final tie being on offer for the winner.
“Forest played us off the park when we played them at home earlier this season…”
I think that you watched a different game to me…
Having finally and belatedly sacked Hughton a couple of days before, their interim manager changed the style/philosophy/attitude and set them up to attack. After a bright Town start they came at us, hit us twice on the break and then sat deep for the rest of the game, repelling our every admittedly weak attack.
I’d argue that they they were far more “all over us” in the game at the City Ground where we pretty much did to them what they had done to us.
Opinions, eh?
I think the Forest away game was as comfortable a 1-0 victory as I could imagine, from my point of view we starved them of space to run into and although they had plenty of opportunities we made them shoot from distance.
To me they simply didnt have the tools at the time to unlock the defense, everything about them seemed to be powerful runners upfront, but no guile in that key position inbehind the striker to open us up.
They looked that night as though they wanted an open game, and we didnt give them it.
I do think your slightly harsh on the moaners.
I think weve had every right to moan at times over the last few years.
Hoyle selling the club for next to nothing and taking his loans back out of key player sales and parachute money.
CCs tactics at times have left loads to be disappointed with, how many points have we thrown away by sitting back and being bossed by Peterborough, Coventry, Stoke, Swansea things have ony changed since the start of February in my opinion. Made all the worse by statements after the game of i should have made the substitutions earlier, or I told them not to sit back yet time and again they ignore him ?
Things seem to have finally clicked, its took 18 months to turn a team of freebies and cheap buys into something that is miles superior to the sum of the parts.
I have no problem if we come up short now I can see the effort is there.
Hats off to CC hes got rid of his beliefs of expansive entertaining football we were promised, probably realising he didnt have the team for it, and hes turned us around.
I look forward to the day he can be supplied with a transfer kitty which will enable him to play his style, however until then well done the recruitment team and CC and his backroom staff
Its finally a team to be proud of again.