One for the purists, Lee Grant’s outbursts, promotion possibilities, an odd news story & keeping control – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s win over Stevenage

Huddersfield Town beat Stevenage 1-0 on Saturday afternoon, which most people who click on this article will already be fully aware of. However, it feels a bit weird just jumping straight into the article without a bit of preamble at the top, so that’s why I like to start these posts by stating the bleedin’ obvious. 

Stevenage didn’t live up to the billing of being the league’s best team, and the suspicion that their four wins were more to do with a kind run of fixtures rather than them being anything special. In fact, I’d say Stevenage were the most average, most League-One-est opponent we’ve faced yet this season. They worked hard, were organised but lacked flair or attacking intent, possibly because Town worked equally hard as a unit to deny them openings. The fact that Town managed to win relatively comfortably against a well drilled but unexciting opponent is a badge of honour in a way, even if the game itself wasn’t exactly a thriller. 

Here are some of my thoughts on this game…

One for the purists

There will be games this season where there are a lot of goals and the momentum will shift backwards and forwards but this game was a more humdrum affair. There was plenty of commitment and effort from both teams but the overall result was like watching two well-matched armwrestlers huff and puff while they canceled out each other’s efforts. When I say it was one for the purists, I don’t mean it was an exhibition of the beautiful game at its finest but instead it was a game you needed to really concentrate to appreciate the battle going on beneath the mundane football being served up at times.

The thing to be grateful for is the way that Town kept plugging away and eventually used their slight advantage to wear Stevenage down and get the goal needed to win the game. May’s goal was the result of an excellent run from Roughan down the left, a brilliant cut back that Taylor kicked the floor instead of converting (he may call this a dummy) but Alfie May eventually finished, after his first effort was blocked but bounced straight back to him. The goal was also the result of Town having a sustained amount of pressure that eventually wore away Stevenage until we found the ball they couldn’t defend. 

The highlights never show the general flow of the game but after a first half where neither team really did enough to be considered better, Town managed to find a little bit extra to lift their performance enough to justify the victory. 

While there wasn’t a lot of excellent football being played in this game, the best bits tended to be from Town and they also did a pretty good job of containing Stevenage beside some fairly tame direct play in the closing moments. 

This game featured quite a few of the traits we’ve seen from Town this season so far:

• A tight, cagey first half
• An improved performance in the second half
• Scoring later on in the second half
• Swinging the game in our favour with quality subs coming off the bench
• Looking fitter than the opposition the longer the game goes on

Even though the season is only five league games old, there have been four games that have played out as detailed above. The Blackpool game is the only outlier, where it was a goal fest for half an hour before the red card made it a weird game of attack and defence but no further goals. 

Town controlled this game 

Despite bemoaning the lack of quality play above, I found myself agreeing with Lee Grant when he described it as the most control Town have shown in Grant’s tenure so far. Controlling a game doesn’t always equal a swashbuckling attacking performance. In fact, it makes it harder to play free-flowing attacking football, as keeping control means being disciplined with defensive work and not taking too many risks going forward.

After Town struggled to get a foothold in the game against Doncaster in the first half on Tuesday night, it was a relief to see Town’s short passing game standing up a lot better to Stevenage’s press. There was some pressure from their forwards when Goodman played the ball out, but not nearly as full throttled as Doncaster, which made it relatively easy for Town to tap it around enough to find a gap and get forward. 

As well as passing better out of defence, Ledson and Kane deserve credit for their work in dominating midfield and keeping Town on top. This involved a lot of showing for the ball and progressing it up the field.

I wouldn’t want to see Town play like this every week but in a match against a tricky opponent, it was surprising how well we subdued them and gradually improved our own play to the point where we managed to carve out the chance we needed to win the game. 

A muted response in the stands

You may have picked up from the tone of this article that this game wasn’t all that impressive from Town. There were plenty of good performances and nobody let the side down but collectively it felt a bit routine. The idea that Town could have a “routine win” so soon in this new season is a bit crazy, given how we were in absolute freefall at the end of last season. 

But if Lee Grant has got this team to a point where beating the top of the table feels a bit dull, then that really says something about the transformation that has happened at Town. Other wins we’ve had so far have felt like statement victories and have created a buzz in the stands. This win was still celebrated but it was quite understated in terms of the “limbs” on display or the mood in the stands. 

I’m going to choose to see this as a good thing, as nobody was grumbling about the performance but it’s workmanlike nature made it hard to whoop too much beyond celebrating the goal and the final whistle. If Town are going to go up automatically then they’ll need plenty of wins like this. 

Promotion looks possible (with a but)

After a false dawn at the start of the Michael Duff era and another one around last Christmas time, I think many Town fans are like me and don’t want to get over excited about Town’s positive summer and start to the season. While everything seems to be going in the right direction, it is still a bit too early to fully invest emotionally in this team. 

With all that being said, I’m slowly coming around to the idea that this team is capable of doing something interesting this season. While there are other teams that have had a good start, I think there’s plenty of reasons to believe that Town are going to be right up there at the end of the season and could be in with a chance of a top-two finish. 

It feels like Town have had a fairly tricky run of fixtures to start the season and have managed to win all but one of their first five games, already putting them in the top two. While I believe that there’s a lot of room for improvement with Town, particularly in attacking areas, we’re already doing well enough to get to where we want to be. 

The thing that would have me believe that little bit more would be if Town make a couple of additions in key areas. Like many other fans, I believe Town need to add a bit more creativity in the wings and a battering ram type of striker to give them the tools they are currently missing from their toolbox. With a week left in the transfer window, time is running out to address these issues (and clear out the fringe players that aren’t going to be involved).

Grant loses his calm exterior

Despite being calm and collected in front of a microphone when facing the media, Lee Grant was pretty wound up at times in this game. He was barking instructions and flapping his arms about a good deal, particularly in the first half. Most of his instructions were to encourage players to push out more, press harder and give a bit more generally. Easier to instruct from the touchline than to put into practice on the pitch. But I think his bellowing seemed to be broadly beneficial to the team, which isn’t always the case with shouty managers.

I’ve actually been concerned that the tranquil and politely spoken version of Grant we see may not translate well to the high-stakes environment of a football dressing room. I now feel satisfied that Lee Grant isn’t just a bland, middle manager type and is willing to speak plainly, directly and at volume if the situation calls for it. 

I also saw Lee Grant get a bit shirty with the fourth official in the second half too. As far as I can tell, the fourth official had signalled to the ref that Town wanted to make a change because we had a couple of subs stripped but we were defending a set piece. Rather than quickly explain Town would be waiting for a less threatening break in play to make the change, Grant looked to mock the fourth official for not understanding the subs would obviously not come on at that point. He said something along the lines of “Nobody does that!” repeatedly and in a slightly mocking tone. Another bit of evidence that Grant has a bit of edge that he typically keeps hidden. Though he’s got a way to go before he matches Neil Warnock in terms of berating officials.

Any other business

This is a new section of these writeups where I address the bits and bobs that aren’t strictly football related but have some relevance to the game.

Fan distribution – The way the fans are spread around the stadium looks to have been affected by the price changes to season cards. The Kilner Bank looks noticeably thinner this season and the Riverside is probably similar (I sit there, so don’t have a good perspective to know for sure). But both the Cowshed and Panasonic (or Terriers Together stand if you want to get with the times) look pretty well stocked with fans compared to last season. The tiered pricing has clearly led to some more price conscious fans filling out the stands behind the goals. I can’t see this having a huge impact on the atmosphere and I’m actually quite surprised by how many fans have renewed overall, given the initial backlash to price rises. I don’t believe official figures have been published but from a quick eyeball assessment, the numbers look respectable given the large increase in cost.

Kev’s making catering issues his business – After multiple complaints were aired online about problems with food and drink being served at the stadium during this match, Kevin Nagle has promised fans the issue will get his personal attention. The stories of ridiculously long waits, equipment failures, selling out of stock, hapless staff and poor quality food, it seems like every conceivable criticism has been levelled at the catering side of things. Reading the comments made me glad that bringing a flask and a few snacks has been a long running tradition for me. Though I will say that the roast potatoes with beef gravy are pretty decent when I’ve had them in the past but are always served close to stone cold. 

Holding on too long – One oddity in this match was that we saw a keeper punished for holding the ball too long, when Town were awarded a corner after Stevenage’s keeper dithered too long on the ball. Sadly we didn’t score from that corner but it felt like a fair punishment for an annoyingly commonplace bit of rule bending and I’m glad this change has been made. Owen Goodman sailed close to the wind with his own handling of the ball on a few occasions so I’ll be less enthusiastic about this change when we start giving away silly corners. 

Screen placement – Did anyone else keep looking in the wrong place for the scoreboard? Muscle memory took over for me and I repeatedly looked at the scaffolding where the new board will be rather than the location of the temporary scoreboard. I’m a little bit surprised our new, far bigger screen is going to go at the back of the south stand, as I think the corner makes a better location for most fans in the ground. There are most likely practical reasons that I’m not considering but I’m also uncertain of how the giant screen will fit into the space it is allocated for. It may end up looking like those tiny flats with 90 inch TVs on the wall, where the screen dominates the whole area. 

GB News’ weird story – I try to avoid politics on the blog but GB News have run a story about how Town celebrated South Asian Heritage Month at the game on Saturday when we “ignored” St George’s Day. Though in their own article, they acknowledge that the club DID acknowledge St George’s Day with a tweet about it despite them also claiming the club were “pointedly silent”. Celebrating South Asian Heritage Month seems like a positive and inclusive activity which may make people from that community feel more welcome at games. If nothing else, it’s more activities going on around the stadium before a game, which seems like a good thing to me. I also think celebrating St George’s Day is a good thing but I don’t think there needs to be a competition to see which events the club celebrates the most. Though tomorrow (26 August) is “Dog Appreciation Day” so I’d hope a team called The Terriers would be fully behind that!