Huddersfield Town beat Coventry yesterday in a game that will have little influence on the final league placings for Town but helped to maintain momentum and confidence ahead of the playoffs. There was also a notable contribution from Tino Anjorin when he came off the bench, which suggests he may finally be coming good at just the right time in our season.
Coventry were a tough opponent and probably deserved more from the game. But a combination of wasteful finishing from them and good defending from us meant that their late goal was merely a consolation and Town took the three points.
Here are some of my thoughts on the game.
Were Town lucky?
I mentioned above that Coventry probably deserved more out of this game and that’s been a familiar story all season. Town have the knack for hanging in games even when the other team are on top. This is frequently dismissed as good luck by opposition fans and pundits but the fact we’ve been able to reproduce this consistently all season suggests it’s a little bit more than luck.
Football is, as the cliche goes, a game of fine margins and Carlos Corberan has found a way to set up his team so those fine margins often seem to fall his way. I don’t think you can say this is purely luck, I think it’s more to do with the winning mentality in the squad.
For example, the look of absolute fury from Lee Nicholls when Town conceded late on showed how much he cares about keeping a clean sheet. The game was pretty much won by that point, the game itself was a dead rubber anyway and nobody is going to blame Nicholls for letting the goal in, yet he was livid to concede late on. If we had players that conceded sloppy goals and just shrugged their shoulders and got on with the rest of the game there is no way we’d be in the position we’re in now.
No dead rubber mentality
If I was in Carlos Corberan’s shoes, I would have been tempted to rest senior players and give the fringe players a run out in this game to mean we have fresh legs for the playoffs. Carlos picked pretty much the strongest lineup he had available, given several regular starters are either out injured or just coming back from injury.
Playing a strong lineup in this game does potentially help to keep momentum and match sharpness going into the playoffs though and providing nobody picked up an injury, it was the right choice.
Injury meant that Scott High made an unexpected start in this game and did reasonably well. I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have done so well if he was playing alongside nine other reserve players as they wouldn’t be able to gel. As it happened, High did a fairly good job in his return to the starting lineup. He made a few too many mistakes in his own half but going forward he looked lively and put in a few decent balls.
Toffolo finds another gear
What a finish! You can forgive the Coventry player for standing off Toffolo before he shot because you just don’t expect Championship left backs to step inside and curl shots into the top corner with their weaker foot. It was an audacious thing to even attempt, nevermind to execute it so perfectly. This goal makes it four goals in the last six games, which would be a great scoring run for a striker, but for a fullback it’s insane.
Toffolo was superb in other aspects of his game yesterday too, attacking well down the left flank and defending with vigour. He’s been good all season in my eyes but it feels like he’s found another level to his game these last few weeks. Perhaps the incentive to play in the Premier League has given him that little bit extra.
It was also lovely to see Toffolo dedicate his goal to Daryl Hopson, the Town fan that tragically died this week. The way the fans and the club have pulled together shows the kind of unity and collective spirit that is rarely seen elsewhere these days.
Winning penalties, avoiding penalties
I’ve mentioned earlier that this was a game of fine margins and there were two incidents that summed this up nicely. Firstly there was a situation where Lee Nicholls dashed off his line to close down a Coventry player that was through on goal but he realised he was not likely to win the encounter and pulled away in time to make the Coventry player look pretty silly when the tumbled to the ground despite there being fresh air between goalkeeper and player when he was hoping for contact.
The inverse of this situation occured when Lewis O’Brien “won” Town a penalty to put us 2-0 up. I say won the penalty because he knew exactly what he was doing, whipping the loose ball in the box away just in time and embracing the keeper’s contact to force the penalty. There was no way O’Brien could have done anything else from that situation and it showed smart thinking to draw the foul that gave us the penalty.
If these two incidents had gone the other way the whole match would have been turned on its head. Coventry could easily have had a penalty if Nicholls hadn’t had the presence of mind to check his momentum and avoid connecting with their player. Equally, Coventry’s keeper could have realised O’Brien was going to get the ball and not thrown himself needlessly at our midfielder’s feet.
O’Brien and Nicholls have been stand out players for Town this season and it’s this kind of stuff that has helped with that. O’Brien is the Championship’s second most fouled player this season and those free kicks have helped a lot in Town scoring the most set piece goals in the league (alongside Sorba Thomas’ superb deliveries and the excellent training ground routines). Similarly, Lee Nicholls has consistently made excellent choices in key moments, he commands his area but rarely gets too gung-ho that he is caught off his line.
Anjorin finally shows what he can do
Town fans have had to be patient with Tino Anjorin as the few appearances he has made so far have been universally underwhelming, until yesterday. In this game he looked like the player we all desperately wanted to be, dictating play and picking out intelligent passes forward when he got on the ball. He still looks a bit cumbersome and seems to need a bit of help with his positioning at times but his ability and strength on the ball was a real asset and a factor in how Town became more dominant in the second half.
Now is the perfect time for the Chelsea loanee to come into form. This half hour performance was good enough in my eyes for him to earn a start in our final league game against Bristol next weekend. Then, presuming Chesea allow him to stay on for the playoffs, he could be in with a chance of helping us in our bid to return to the Premier League.
Getting the second goal
For what seems like years, when Town have played well in games they’ve got their noses in front but failed to score another goal to cement their authority on a game. That has changed lately, as Town have now scored exactly two goals in their last five matches. This is particularly pleasing after the spell Town had earlier in the season where they kept sitting back on single-goal leads and then conceding.
The benefits of getting the second goal have been felt in both of Town’s last two matches, where they’ve conceded sloppy late goals to win 2-1 and, in the process, turned Lee Nicholls into Mr Angry. But, had they not pushed on and got a second goal in each of those goals we would have dropped points rather than just losing the opportunity for a clean sheet.
Town likely to finish fourth but everything else is undecided in the playoff spots
As it stands, Town are the only team certain to be in the playoffs, most likely in fourth but definitely in one of the positions that gives us the second leg of the semis at home. Above us Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest are fighting for the final automatic spot and below us Luton, Sheffield United, Middlesbrough and Milwall are fighting for the final two spots. Luton seemed Town’s likely opponents but the serious knock to their goal difference they suffered against Fulham last night means it could be anyone that finishes fifth and Town will most likely face.
While I understand that the playoffs are a lottery and all the usual platitudes, I’m pleased that Town won’t have to face Bournemouth or Forest until the final (if at all). Of the teams that Town are likely to face in the semis, I don’t think I’m too bothered which we end up coming up against. On paper Luton might look the easier of the potential draws but they’ve proven themselves to be tough opponents this season. Both Middlesbrough and Sheffield United can be excellent on their day but Town have found a way to beat both teams already this season and could do so again.
My preference TS would be for Bournemouth in the final, if we get there! The hammerings administered by them on us surely have to end, just as similarly the hammerings dealt out by Fulham came to an end this season.
On Saturday our goal scoring left back added another string to his bow with a precise right footed curler into the top corner. Anjorin at last proved his worth with purposeful and skilful contributions plus we now have at least one penalty taker for the play-offs!
Hogg rarely, but not completely, put a pass or a foot wrong, a typical miskick almost presenting a goal scoring opportunity; Pipa brings excitement and energy when on the ball and he was defensively sound; Nicholls consistency and athleticism remain at a high level; High did not perform at that level, in fact he seemed slow on and to the ball times, however he was much superior to Holmes who did little right bar setting up a missed Rhodes sitter, otherwise consistently losing the ball in possession and failing to nail his man when out of it, also putting a well-worked chance into the side netting. Voices around me also registered frustration with the two Hs.
Coventry are a good football ream they were superior to us in the reverse fixture, for us to get four points from them over the two games is a very good outcome for Town.