Notes on Huddersfield Town’s draw with Rotherham

There’s a saying about how you shouldn’t argue with a fool because they’ll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. To paraphrase that expression, Huddersfield Town allowed themselves to be dragged down to Rotherham’s level in Saturday’s match and let the game to be played on their terms. Because of this we were treated to a pretty unappealing game of football to watch, where the quality of the football was low and the pushing and shoving were high. 

Town’s cause wasn’t helped by our new left wingback getting sent off within minutes of coming on. Add to that Lonwijk’s injury in the first minute of the game and the continued aversion to scoring from our forwards and it’s no huge surprise that Town could only come away with this game with a point. 

What was this game?

Wins are good, defeats are bad but draws are a bit more open to interpretation. While our ambition to get promoted requires us to win most of our home games, maybe this draw wasn’t terrible as we showed good fighting spirit, had a crazy number of shots (again) and kept pushing for a winner despite being down to ten men. 

It’s hard to be too happy about drawing at home against a team just outside the relegation zone but then again, Rotherham were fancied to go up this season before the season started and Steve Evans’ teams are never easy to play against.

Thinking back to how good Town were against Cambridge in their 4-0 win, we were well below that standard in this match. Though one of the characteristics of Michael Duff’s Huddersfield Town has been their ability to get points from sub-par performances. I’d say that more than half of our games in our current unbeaten run in the league have been scrappy and tight affairs that Town have just edged in their favour without playing all that well.  

While it would be better if Town could blow teams out of the water with their beautiful football, in reality, League One is a difficult league because so many games are hard-fought battles. And Steve Evans’ Rotherham definitely aren’t afraid of scrapping hard to get something from a game even if they don’t have a lot of technical ability.

Some thoughts on individual performances

I used to enjoy writing player rating articles but a lack of time means I’ve knocked them on the head in recent seasons. In spite of that, here are a few of my opinions about individual players from Saturday:

Koroma: Guilty of having what young people today call “main character energy” because he wanted to make the game all about him whenever he got on the ball. Greedy attackers can be the best type of attackers but only when they are getting results. Koroma’s continual attempts to set up the perfect right-footed curler are now seeming selfish and too often he slows down our attacks by trying to do everything himself rather than laying it off to someone else. He had a bad game against Rotherham but arguably was still the player that looked the most threatening. He either needs to continue to be greedy but justify it with quality finishes or he needs to be a team player.

Radulovic was good in moments in this game, showing some nice touches and linking up play nicely. I’m not overly excited about this upturn in performance as his good moments were almost exclusively when he dropped off into midfield areas. He still looks timid and lightweight when up against physical central defenders, losing nearly all the battles he went up for and occasionally looking like he was trying to win headers without making contact with their defenders and therefore jumping from the completely wrong position. To his credit, he did get some rough treatment and little help from the referee but he kept plugging away anyway.

Spencer did well switching to left back and gave us an outlet when we went forward. Obviously he’d be better on the other side but the team needed him to cover for Lonwijk’s early injury. Like all right-footed left backs, he had to turn inside onto his right foot whenever he got into advanced positions, which gave them time to close him down. 

Hodge had big boots to fill following Kasumu’s dropping out of the team due to injury. He did the job of the deepest lying midfielder well, even if his way of playing it is different to Kasumu. He sprayed around some lovely balls and showed a good awareness of those around him. He’s not the kind of swashbuckling, blood and thunder defensive midfielder that Town fans enjoy but he makes up for it with a bit of quality on the ball.

Helik didn’t always seem comfortable with the two big lads Rotherham had up top but managed to win plenty of headers despite the grappling that was going on. He also could have had a goal or two from the chances he was on the end of. 

Wiles looked like a player that had played too many games recently, with his movement off the ball seeming more laboured than usual and therefore wasn’t as effective. Duff, after the game, talked about how he seemed tired, so I wouldn’t be stunned to see Anthony Evans come in for him in the coming weeks. Speaking of which…

Evans made a telling contribution from the bench after a long spell out with a bruised toe. He looked like he did in the Peterborough game at the start of the season rather than the frustrated and ineffective version we saw before his injury. While no player wants injuries, maybe this time out of the team has given him a chance to reset and he could make a big impact in the back end of the season.

Rotherham are not pretty to watch but they got their point

I find Steve Evans an unpleasant person to look at and the football his teams play is equally unpleasant. Yet, having said that, they did do their job effectively in this game and managed to keep us out at one end and have some presentable chances to win the game at the other end.

The fact that they’re the league’s most wasteful team in terms of failing to convert chances helped let Town off the hook when their direct play opened us up on a few occasions. While a Rotherham win wouldn’t have been a fair reflection of the game as a whole, more clinical finishing would have got them all three points (though you could make the same criticism of Town too).

My enduring feeling, coming away from this game, was “At least we don’t have to play them again until next season”. Unless they somehow make it into the playoffs, which I think is unlikely as their brutalist approach to football only works with players who can score goals when you carve out chances. Just like Town, they desperately need a striker who can find the net.

Are the injuries just bad luck?

David Kasumu and Nigel Lonwijk have now both joined the injury list, alongside Danny Ward being ruled out for the season since I last blogged. So the welcome return of Evans, Hodge and Hogg in the last few games has been soured by three other players no longer being available. 

I’d hoped that our humongous group of players out of action earlier in the season was a freak accumulation of bad luck but the continual churn of players coming and going from the squad due to injury feels like more than bad luck. It’s obvious to the casual observer that Michael Duff has the team working a lot harder on the pitch than previous regimes have. He’s also raised the fitness levels of the team too, so I’m not convinced he’s to blame for working them too hard. 

Is it the fixture list that’s to blame? Certainly Kasumu and Lonwijk’s injuries sound like the kind of muscular injury that comes from too many games close together. The fact our squad has been depleted lately, particularly for left-sided defenders and central midfielders, has meant that these two have probably had to play more games than is ideal. 

Though some of our other injuries this season are just freakish bad luck. Danny Ward twisted his standing leg awkwardly when shooting, Miller had a player land awkwardly on his leg, Evans bruised toe is an odd injury to pick up, Nicholls continuing elbow strife is fairly rare too, Balker broke his ankle just clearing a loose ball back in preseason. So the bulk of our injuries aren’t the kind of muscle twang that makes you ask questions of the coaches. 

Whatever the reason, if we can shake off the injuries we’ve got now without picking up too many new ones, it will give us good depth and competition for places that haven’t been present in many areas of the pitch lately.

A brief cameo for Roosken

Ruben Roosken’s introduction to this game was quite similar to the famous GIF of Grandpa Simpson entering and leaving a house of ill repute, with him only lasting a few minutes before picking up a red card. 

In the stands, I thought the referee was harsh to award the red but the replays make it hard to stick to that opinion. He went in with his studs up and could have caused a nasty injury going in so hard and high.

While I’m all for a bit of controlled aggression on the pitch, this was more a miscalculation and a rush of blood. It was a relatively feisty encounter and Roosken had been roughed up a bit in the (brief) time he had on the pitch before the incident. I suspect he wanted to fly into a few tackles to prove himself to his new teammates and fans. Sadly, he’ll have to wait a few games now before he gets another chance to impress. 

Shall I moan about strikers again? Go on then!

Obviously it’s tedious to talk about our lack of competent strikers, as it’s been an issue since the start of the season and until a new arrival comes in, I can’t see it getting better. OK, Radulovic did better than usual but that’s faint praise given his baseline performance hovering around awful. 

Marshall and Koroma looked better thanks to us playing with a front three and them being more in the inside forward sort of role. While neither made a breakthrough, both had good moments here and there. Alongside times they could have done better too. 

Is it as simple as Town would have won this game if we had a decent striker? Probably not, as even great strikers typically only average a goal every other game. However, the lack of presence at the top end of the pitch continues to be a problem. While it’s a worry that our strikers don’t score enough, it’s also a concern that none of the three forwards we started this game had the ability to mix it up with the central defenders and we continue to look weak at the top end of the pitch. 

While I’m as impatient as the next man for Town to bring in a striker, I’m also aware that we’ve currently overstocked our squad with forwards that are lacking in one of more key skills that’s required of a striker. So I’d rather wait until later in the window than risk another Ladapo type of signing.

Dropped points put pressure on upcoming matches

Despite continuing our unbeaten run with this draw, it does also mean we’ve dropped four points in two home games against bottom half teams. There’s a gap opening up now between us and the teams above us, aided by the Wigan game being called off too.

If Town can beat Wycombe in this week’s game then it will inevitably help to close the gap but a defeat would put us ten points behind them (admittedly with a game in hand). Considering that Birmingham should really coast their way to a top two finish, it feels like we’ve got to be better than both Wycombe and Wrexham to stand a chance of automatic promotion. 

Though Town’s indifferent form makes it hard to imagine them mounting a serious bid to finish in the top two. Every time we seem to pick up a bit of momentum we turn in a flat performance or two. Hopefully we can lift our game for Wycombe and close the gap at the top.