Plenty to admire but also some grumbles as Town make it three wins in a row – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 2-1 win over Stevenage

Huddersfield Town won their third game in a row on Saturday and their second consecutive league game, seeing off Stevenage 2-1 in a game that started off one-sided but ended up edgy and uncomfortable for the Terriers. There was still plenty to admire in the performance from Michael Duff’s new-look Huddersfield Town but the questions asked by Stevenage of Town in the second half caused some bad habits to slip back in and cause some slight concern despite still picking up the three points.

It’s perhaps a sign of how Town are making progress that we can now win games but still come away feeling unhappy, when in recent seasons any kind of win was so rare we’d be too delighted to pick up maximum points to quibble about performance issues. And while it’s important to savour every victory, I think the driving up of standards and expectation under Michael Duff is important if we’re going to succeed this season.

Here are a few more of my thoughts on the game:

I don’t like to complain about referees… but

We had a particularly poor referee for this game and it had a genuine impact on the flow of the game. After last week’s game at Peterborough, were that ref blew up for the slightest contact on their players when we were trying to establish our pressing game, this weekend our referee seemed to be running the game like my playground games of football were officiated and fouls were only awarded when a coming together required hospital treatment. Stevenage were a team full of bruisers who relished throwing their weight around and the referee didn’t seem remotely interested in blowing up for any of their over-the-top pushes, kicks or elbows that left us completely unable to get into a flow.

Strangely, the thing the ref got the most stick about was probably a good decision. The penalty incident in the dying moments of the game was seen by almost nobody else but multiple rewatches of the highlights show Brodie Spencer hauling down one of their players. It was maybe a bit soft and the kind of thing that’s very rarely given in a crowded penalty area but the other way around, I would absolutely expect Town to be awarded a penalty. However, there were probably fifty or so similar pushes and shoves in open play that the referee waved away and showed no interest in cracking down on, despite how much it interfered with the game. So I don’t have any real issue with the penalty, I just wish the referee was that eagle-eyed throughout the whole game. 

I don’t think complaining about referees is all that interesting or helpful in the scheme of things but this was one of the more notable performances because it changed the game. Similar to Bristol City away last season where the handball decision against Oli Turton changed that game and the course of our season. Thankfully in this game, we managed to overcome the physical play of Stevenage and assert ourselves anyway, despite their attempts to kick us off the pitch which the referee didn’t do anything to stop. 

Good first half

Despite my grumbles about the ref, I think Town did a good job of overcoming Stevenage’s muscle men and the ref’s playground rules approach and, ultimately, Town enforced their gameplan on the opposition rather than letting the circumstances stop them from playinghow they wanted to play. It became pretty obvious from early on that Stevenage had come to stop us rather than do anything themselves, so our challenge was to try and find a way through a team set up to stop us getting past them. 

So it was quite pleasing to see us moving the ball quickly and using our wingbacks to get the ball down the sides and then whip balls in for the attackers to feed off. It’s not a particularly clever tactical approach but it works and it’s getting us goals at the moment, so I’m pleased we’re playing this way. 

Sorensen made the breakthrough mid-way through the first half, putting a lovely cross on a plate for Josh Koroma who scored the first headed goal of his career (which seems hard to believe but I don’t think anyone has found evidence to contradict this claim yet). The goal was very un-Koroma like but post-match comments explained that, as apparently Duff and the other coaches have been lecturing him on the value of occupying more central areas and trying to score more poacher’s goals now he’s playing as a central striker. This makes perfect sense, as those goals count just as much as the 30-yard screamers.

The goal boosted Town’s confidence and we settled into a pattern then of probing around and holding possession more, while Stevenage went more direct with their play and seemed content to try to kick us around when they didn’t have the ball and hoof it downfield when they did get it.

A very different second half

In Town’s games against Peterborough and Morecambe, they took the lead in the first half of both games and then continued to play well in the second halves of those games and killed the opposition off. So I was expecting to see more of the same in this game. But Stevenage weren’t the same kind of opponent. And with the couple of subs they made at half time and the switch in formation, they weren’t even the same team that they put out in the first half. Rather than sitting deep and showing little ambition, suddenly they were pushing up against Town and trying to play. Which we could not cope with at all.

Within a few minutes of the restart Helik and Lees both went for the same ball, missed it and the gaping hole this left in our defence was exploited to send through one of their players who missed a pretty much open goal. This opportunity to level the game wouldn’t have been undeserved either, as Stevenage’s changes at half time brought them back into the game and saw them stroking the ball about and showing a kind of footballing ambition that was completely absent in the first half. It made me wonder why they didn’t set out like this from the start to be honest, because it seemed like a much more effective approach rather than just trying to kick and shove us off the park.

It was a cruel blow for Stevenage then, when Town went up the other end and scored during this best spell of the game for them. Antony Evans picked out Sorensen on the wing, who put in another great ball to find Wiles’ excellently timed run into the box, who applied a lovely finish and we were 2-0 up. This was THE goal we keep scoring. The cut-back-to-the-attacking-midfielder is going to be a big source of goals for us this season if our early games are anything to go on. While opposition scouts watching our games may be aware of this and try to stop us scoring from these areas, there’s only so much you can do, because if you mark Wiles, then Evans can pop up somewhere else. We just look very good when we get into these areas with the wingbacks clipping balls into the box and the rest of the team filling up the box to get on the end of the ball.

Sadly, from the point of going 2-0 up, the game fell to pieces for Town. We didn’t do any of the things that have been working well for us and started doing weird things, like booting the ball up in the air a lot more and letting them win it back. Or running down blind alleys and losing possession. Everything suddenly looked very hard work and Stevenage got a foothold in the game and we lost all the momentum. 

The good thing was that Michael Duff was incensed with what he was watching. As the sloppiness crept into Town’s play he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel in the technical area. There was none of the passive staring off into the distance we saw from Darren Moore when Town laboured towards defeats. Duff could see things weren’t right and wasn’t happy to accept what he saw – that can only be a good thing. 

My feeling is that there are still old habits deeply ingrained in some members of this team that creep in regardless of their most recent coaching. Bad habits, like take your foot off the gas if you’re ahead. Which means other teams can get back into the game. It’s not a conscious choice but it’s programming that’s hard to break when it’s been in place for a while. We do need to do things differently though. Rather than settling for being 1-0 or 2-0 ahead we should just keep going and push to dominate games all the way through to the end. I think it’s part of  adjusting the mentality when we’ve been a team that has lost the majority of its games for a very long time.

Some thoughts on individual players

Lasse Sorensen is the player that really stood out in this game – he has been superb since the first friendly but is getting better and better. Duff was right to point out in his post-match comments that he’s not just a great athlete but he’s also a skilled technical footballer too. Sorba Thomas was an excellent striker of the ball, but I can’t remember him finding specific players so consistently with his crossing from open play. The two assists that Sorensen contributed in this game were about as good as you could ask for. He was the key contributor for two of the goals on Tuesday night too (technically only one was an assist because Headley’s goal came from Sorensen’s saved shot but was an assist in all-but name) so is becoming a vital source of goals for Town. 

It was good to see Josh Koroma open his account in this game too, especially from a striker’s goal, where he nodded in a cross. I doubt he’ll score many more with his head but it shows he’s taking on board instruction from the coaches and trying to improve and adapt to the system he’s playing in. 

Ben Wiles continues his Ben-aissance (I’m going to keep trying to force that phrase into being a thing) with a goal and a decent performance. He could have had another one from his attempted lob but for the keeper’s intervention and a goal-line clearance. 

Brodie Spencer had another tricky afternoon on the left side of central defence, making a few unforced errors in possession and giving away the penalty in the dying moments (which may have been harsh but was just about right in my view). I think some allowances need to be made for the fact he’s a right-footer playing on the left side and that’s meaning he’s often having to shift the ball onto his preferred foot and that’s getting him into awkward body positions which leads to some of these errors. Given he’s still learning his trade, I wonder if it might be kinder to switch sides and put the more experienced Lees on the left side until a left-footer can be brought in.

Danny Ward… [CUT AND PASTE USUAL DANNY WARD GOOD EFFORT BUT NO GOALS PARAGRAPH] 

This is still a good win

The performance in the second half from Town was a bit of a disappointment but I still think there was plenty to like about this game. Firstly, winning a game when you’re not at your best is a hallmark of a successful team. Also, that second half implosion was good in a way because it’s given Duff plenty of material to work with. It showed him that there is still plenty of work to do with this team to get them into the winning machine he wants but it didn’t cost us any points. So that’s not such a bad thing.

Before the game I was curious about how Town would cope when they came up against a team that would present them with more of a physical challenge but that wasn’t the biggest problem we had in this game. In the first half we were pushed around, and the ref allowed that to happen. We took our lumps and found a way to get around that and played our way anyway. I think that showed we don’t have too much to worry about from bully-boy teams, even ones like Stevenage that look like they’ve stepped straight off Muscle Beach and into a football match.

The bigger issue came for Town when Stevenage made attacking substitutes and got the ball down and passed it around a bit more. So we should probably fear the footballing teams more than the direct, long-ball teams based on this evidence. But as the season goes on we will no doubt develop this system and approach to be flexible depending on the opponent. One thing I’m learning is that Michael Duff is a canny coach who knows how to get results. 

Town still need to strengthen in the transfer window

While the transfer window is still open, it’s hard not to look at every game through the filter of how new signings could have improved the outcome of this game. I’ve already mentioned how Brodie Spencer is struggling on his unnatural side of defence, so a proper left-footed defender is needed, preferably one who is comfortable on the ball and that has an eye for a forward pass. Though that kind of player that is willing to play at this level is not easy to find if you also expect them to be able to defend too. 

A younger, fitter but just as organised and aggressive version of Jonathan Hogg would be nice too. He’s actually been pretty decent in the opening two league games but it would not be sensible to expect him to remain fit for the majority of the season. I also think Kasumu is better suited to cover the right wingback or advanced midfield areas, given his particular set of skills. 

Then there’s the area we all know that Town needs reinforcing: the striker area. Despite having Ward, Koroma, Marshall, Harratt, Healey, Radulovic, Jones and Hudlin as senior players that can play in this part of the pitch, we still feel short. The long list I’ve just reeled off though goes to show that Town need to sign the right player, not just any player. Injury prone players and speculative punts have got us into this situation of having a bloated squad of players that aren’t delivering. So if we bring in a striker it should be an investment in someone with a track record of scoring regularly, a history of playing a high number of games a season without injury and of playing at a decent level. Those players are not easy to come by. In fact, it feels like such a small pool of players that Joe Taylor from Luton might be our last hope of getting the right profile of player. Hopefully we’ve still got a chance of bringing him in.