Huddersfield Town started their 2021/22 season with a penalty shootout victory over Sheffield Wednesday in the first round of the Carabao Cup. While it’s tempting to dwell on the fact Town failed to score despite dominating possession and creating presentable chances but instead I’m going to focus on the positives from the game.
Here’s a roundup of some of the best tweets I found following another penalty shootout win at Hillsborough.
Toffolo sings the praises of our new keeper
Harry Toffolo was the first of the Town players to go online to talk about the game and he was right to single out Nicholls for praise. Our new keeper did a lot of win over Town fans with a couple of superb penalty saves during the shootout.
It seems like the debate about who should be first choice keeper this season is settled for now. Schofield will most likely get his chance at some stage but it’s surely going to be Nicholls between the sticks at Pride Park this coming weekend.
Lewis O’Brien seals victory in style
The Sunday papers linked O’Brien with a £10m+ move to Leeds but his selection for this game suggests the deal isn’t all that far along the line just yet. O’Brien was man of the match for Town and his emphatic penalty sealed Town’s passage into the next round.
After seeing some poor penalties in the Euro 2020 shootouts, it was good to see Town players aiming for the corners and not trying anything too fancy. O’Brien’s penalty was the pick of the bunch, as keepers simply don’t save them when you get them right in the top corner.
Rhodes steps up for penalty duty against his old club
I was delighted that Jordan Rhodes stepped up to take the first penalty after he famously refused to take one against Town in the 2017 playoff semi-final. After receiving stick from Sheffield Wednesday fans, he took his penalty well and was perfectly within his rights to celebrate the way he did.
As a sidenote, I’m not keen on players refusing to celebrate scoring against their old clubs in general. A player’s allegiance should always be to their current club and there’s nothing wrong with being happy to have scored. Though in Rhodes case I suspect he was happy to shut up those Owls fans that had been on his back for a number of years.
Bielsa spotted in the ground
The O’Brien to Leeds rumours intensified when Marco Bielsa was spotted in the stands at Hillsborough. He may well have been scouting O’Brien but this game is only a short distance from Leeds and the only match on yesterday, so I suspect he’d have been at the game anyway. He’s a football fanatic that will watch any game that’s on and he’s also a mentor to Carlos Corberán, so probably wanted to show him some support too.
Town fans get that winning feeling again
The roar from the Town fans when the winning penalty went in was superb to hear. After so long of having to settle for watching streams of games, it’s not a surprise that fans expressed their delight when we won the game.
Some salty Sheffield Wednesday fans jumped online to mock Town fans for over celebrating a relatively meaningless victory but I’m certain those same fans would have been doing just the same had they got the better of Town.
The Hef celebrates close to Sheffield Wednesday fans again
Michael Hefele accidentally ran to the Sheffield Wednesday fans when Town won the playoff semi-final in 2017, getting confused about why the fans in blue and white shirts seemed so angry with him. So it seemed quite funny to me that he was once again surrounded by Wednesday fans as Town secured victory, this time because he was in with the prawn sandwich lot in his new role, which seems to be a hybrid of Leigh Bromby’s assistant and a backup Terry the Terrier.
Hogg manages to arrange his face into something close to a smile
If Jonathan Hogg is happy, I’m happy. This marvellous picture shows that pleasure isn’t an emotion that comes easily to Hoggy but “The General” clearly enjoyed his afternoon out in Sheffield.
If O’Brien goes to Leeds would Barry Bannon be a good replacement, despite his age ?
I’ve wanted Bannon at Town for a number of years but I think his wages would most likely be too much even though Sheffield Wednesday are now in League One. He’d be the replacement to Mooy we’ve been missing all these years.
Last season CC would have left O’Brien out of the team with the possibility of a transfer looming. Is the transfer talk just newspapers making things up again?
If the deal was close to happening it would be too risky to play him. I think there’s interest in him but no firm offers on the table yet. Burnley and Newcastle have been linked in the past but I think our valuation may be too high for them.