Rhodes’ goal, Camara’s graft, Nicholls’ save, Thomas’ miss, Pelach’s passion – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s win over Cardiff

Huddersfield Town won their second game of the season yesterday in a narrow, scrappy game against Cardiff. It was a hard-fought game where neither team played amazing football but Town showed a bit of grit and determination that has been sorely lacking in recent weeks and managed to hang on to their narrow lead, mostly thanks to a Lee Nicholls penalty save in the first half and, admittedly, a fairly poor Cardiff team.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the game which seem to centre around a few key figures from Town’s squad yesterday…

Jordan Rhodes and the goal

It’s not been easy for Jordan Rhodes in his second spell at Town. He signed while carrying a back injury and by the time he was fully fit Danny Ward was in excellent form and Rhodes was limited to cameo’s from the bench. To add to that, we don’t really play the kind of football that suits his style of play as he’s a poacher that needs lots of chances to finish, and generally need our strikers to be grafters that sacrifice goalscoring to help the rest of the team.

So it was nice to see him get a start yesterday and see him get a chance to do what he does best. I don’t think anyone else in the team is capable of the slotted finish that he put away for the game’s only goal. The first touch to get the ball out of his feet and into space to get the shot away is superb and the way he slides it in and the keeper barely moves is classic Rhodes. 

He joked in his post-match interview about how he can’t get about the pitch like he used to be able to but in spite of that his finishing instincts are clearly still as sharp as ever. I hope whoever comes in to manage us next appreciates the ability that Rhodes still has and finds a way for him to fit into whatever system we play.

Etienne Camara and adding bite to midfield

Looking at a player at the other end of their footballing career to Jordan Rhodes, 19-year-old Etienne Camara fully deserved his man of the match award yesterday on his first start for the team. He put in an incredible shift and played a big part in Town’s midfield having more bite to it and the defence being better protected. 

His midfield partner, David Kasumu had a decent game too, and I think having two players willing to do the dirty work in that part of the pitch really helped, as when one was dropping in at left back, for example, there was still the other blocking runs from midfield. It may limit our attacking potential but while we’re in the relegation zone and shipping too many soft goals it seems sensible to try and shore up the defence first and then worry about scoring goals later.

The challenge for Camara now is to kick on from this excellent first start. Jonathan Hogg’s injury will keep him out for most of the international break, so it’s now down to him to train hard and try his best to get to a level where he’s playing too well to keep the old timer out of the team – no easy task! In reality, we probably need to keep our expectation levels down for the youngster as while he does look to be very promising, it may take a season or two before he’s ready to be a regular starter in the Championship as he is still learning his craft.

Lee Nicholls and the penalty

Another player that deserves some praise is Lee Nicholls, who not only saved Robinson’s penalty but he completely smothered it. In fairness, it was a poorly struck penalty that bobbled on the floor on the way to goal but it still required Nicholls to guess the right way and cover a decent amount of ground to make the save.

On the subject of the penalty, I thought it was soft when I was in the stadium but having now watched a replay, it was the right decision. Anjorin just didn’t know the Cardiff player was rushing in but it’s not an excuse and he did make contact with his head. To put it another way, if the roles were reversed, I’d have been screaming for a penalty. 

Nicholls had a commanding game as well as saving a penalty. He didn’t have much work to do in terms of stopping shots, other than snaffling a free kick that went straight into his tummy, but he was a reassuring presence at the back. I don’t know if it was an instruction from the bench or a choice from the individual players but we seemed to take fewer silly risks with the ball at the back and everyone seemed a lot calmer for it. Maybe it’s not as fancy or modern to just clear your lines when you’re under pressure but it certainly reduces your chances of conceding and reduces the blood pressure of watching fans too!

Jack Rudoni and Sorba Thomas fail to give us a cushion

I thought that we deserved our win yesterday but we rode our luck a little bit at times and on another day it could easily have been a 1-1 draw. Particularly when you consider we saved one penalty and Rudoni’s foul on the edge of the penalty area in the second half, after watching the replay, looked a lot more like a penalty. 

But on the other hand, we created enough chances to put this game to bed comfortably. Before he was subbed, Rudoni was clear through on goal and could either have had a shot on goal or square to the onrushing Holmes. He dithered, allowing their defender to make a good tackle when the opportunity really should have resulted in a goal one way or the other. 

I feel like Rudoni may be overthinking things in front of goal at the moment. He scored and set up a lot of goals for Wimbledon last season but he’s not got into that rhythm yet at Town. You can see that instinct is still there but it’s not quite coming off for him. The step up to the Championship and adjusting to a new club and teammates is most likely the issue, not to mention playing in a team that is in poor form and struggling for confidence collectively. Hopefully a new manager can come in and everyone, including him, will get a boost.

But of course the worst miss of the day has to go to Sorba Thomas who missed an absolute sitter in the late stages. Pat Jones did excellent work to catch a Cardiff player in possession and then square it to Sorba who had the whole goal to aim for but his side footed effort went limply wide. It seemed unlikely that Thomas would be the hero after his temper tantrum at half time on Tuesday led to him being subbed and was most likely a part of the decision to drop him yesterday. 

I don’t want to join in with an internet pile on of Sorba Thomas as there’s enough people giving him stick at the moment, I just hope that going away with Wales gives him a bit of time to clear his head, reset his form and then he can come back with a fresh mindset after the international break.  

Narcis Pelach makes all the right moves

It’s possible that Narcis Pelach will go down in the record books as a Huddersfield Town manager with a 100% win record as we’ll most likely have a new boss in charge by the end of the international break. I think he thoroughly deserves the win too, judging from his comments before and after the game, he really cares about the club and understands exactly how important the club is to the fans. I liked the things he was saying about how the players have to produce something on the pitch and then they get it back in energy from the stands. We saw that yesterday, when the crowd backed the players when they saw some energy and passion in the early stages and it helped spur the players on to push even harder.

I also liked how Pelach conducted himself on the touchline. I’m not keen on coaches that are calm and collected, I prefer to see a bit of energy and enthusiasm and he transmitted that onto his players on the pitch. Though he may have sailed close to the wind when he started a pushing and shoving match with the Cardiff sub that snatched the ball out of his hands in the second half when he was trying to waste a bit of time before a throw in.

It was also a classy move for Pelach to emphatically state he isn’t in the running for the top job and insist he just wants to be a coach. He’s seen how short-lived your career can be as a head coach with his friend only lasting 69 days, so I suppose he probably understands his long-term career is better served as a member of the backroom team. But I hope that his stint as caretaker boss has proven that he can be a useful assistant to whichever new boss comes in regardless of whatever backroom staff they want to bring with them. 

Things are looking up but there is still work to do

I probably shouldn’t finish this post on a down note, but it’s worth adding that this win doesn’t solve all our problems. This was a poor Cardiff team and we still only beat them one nil, and that was after Nicholls saved one penalty and the ref didn’t give them another that probably was one. So it’s not like all our issues are now resolved.

The positives are that we’ve got a decent squad, with a decent blend of established Championship quality, loanees that add a bit of quality from the Premier League and youth players that have potential to develop too.

The league table looks a bit better now we’ve gone up to seven points but we’re still second from bottom and would probably be actually bottom if Coventry had played all their games in hand. There are also issues in every area of the pitch that need to be resolved with Town. Not massive ones, but enough small ones that they add up to an overall issue. 

We allow too many soft goals in at the back, we don’t have enough presence in the middle of the pitch and we don’t create nearly enough chances for the striker in the final third. So the new head coach is going to have a fair bit of work to do when they come in! And they’re going to have to do it in the middle of a fixture list where it’s two games a week pretty much every week until the World Cup break. 

So, while I sympathise with Leigh Bromby’s comments about the importance of the decision of getting the right head coach and not rushing things, it would be good to get the new man it fairly quickly. Games will come thick and fast once October comes around and the sooner an appointment is made the longer they will have to embed their ideas before the fixture pileup comes along.