The Fotheringham Way, shooting boots, towel drama, making Millwall bad & table climbing – notes on Town’s win over Millwall

Huddersfield Town beat Millwall on Saturday and given it was such a good result for the Terriers, I’m going to write another article to dig into what went on. While there will be better performances for Town this season, there most likely won’t be one that comes as more of a surprise as we turned a spell of indifferent form into a decent performance that warranted a win against a team that had won their last four games.

The next challenge is for Town to build on their hard-fought draw at Middlesbrough and impressive win against Millwall and turn it into a proper run of good form. If they can do that then they may well pull themselves clear of the relegation zone before the World Cup break comes in a few weeks’ time. That would be a lovely pre-Christmas present for fans. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I’m going to turn my attention back to Saturday’s game…

Fotheringham’s style is starting to emerge

I’m not sure I could have really told you what kind of football Mark Fotheringham wanted to play prior to this last couple of games but I think there’s a style emerging now. The Middlesbrough and Millwall games have both been built upon stodgy defensive bases, where the defensive midfielders and central defenders keep things very tight and don’t allow spaces for the opposition to play through us. Then it’s the job of the wide players and attackers to move the ball forward quickly when we get into possession to try and create chances.

It’s probably not a huge surprise, given where Fotheringham has cut his teeth as a coach, that this style of football is more similar to Wagner than other recent Town coaches. It’s also not a huge surprise that this system is taking a bit of time to bed in, as it relies on organisation first and foremost and that takes time on the training ground to build – time that Fotheringham hasn’t been allowed because of the hectic fixture schedule.

I’m still not completely convinced by Mark Fotheringham, I think his harsh man-management style risks alienating players and he has been tactically naive in some games so far but there are signs of him getting better from game to game, which is promising at least. This is his first time as a head coach and he wasn’t even allowed to bring in any of his own coaching team to support him, so it’s understandable that it will take time for him to bed in. I think any head coach needs ten games to get established anyway, so he’s still well within his honeymoon period.

Were Town good or Millwall bad?

I’ve seen a few comments after the game that Millwall were poor and that was a large factor in Town’s success on Saturday but I think that might just be another backhanded compliment of Town’s defensive display. The Lions only managed a single attempt on goal all game but I don’t think that was because they played badly but more because we didn’t allow them to play well. I talked above about the defensive midfield and central defenders not allowing any spaces and that denied them the opportunity to get close enough to our goal to craft good shooting opportunities.

I remember in Town’s promotion season under David Wagner that we would often beat teams only to be told by rival fans that we were rubbish but had just caught them on an off day. But if you keep catching teams on an off day, maybe there’s something about the way that you play your game that makes the opposition have an off day. I think that might have been the case with Town on Saturday, it would explain why Millwall came into the game in fine form but couldn’t find any fluency against a team sat bottom of the table.

Twice in this blogpost I’ve made a comparison between this team and David Wagner’s team that got promoted from the Championship. Just to be clear, there’s a huge gap in terms of quality and fluency between those two teams but I think there is a similarity in terms of the grittiness that makes it difficult for other teams to play against. Or at least there have been these last few games. That is something I would really like to see us build on over the rest of the season.

Attacking players need to find their scoring boots

In our previous game, against Middlesbrough, Town got the defensive side of things right but were pretty dire going forward. Against Millwall, there was a much better showing when we had the ball at our feet. That was thanks in part to some of our attacking players looking a lot more of a threat when they got on the ball. Rudoni, Holmes, Kasumu and Thomas all had moments where they drove forward into enemy territory with real purpose. This was encouraging to see, particularly considering many of these attacks were at pace, which meant there were gaps available to exploit.

Call me greedy if you like, but I think there’s a lot more to come from these attacking players. Each showed signs of improvement on Saturday but also lacked composure in moments where a bit more care could have led to a goal or an assist. Thomas is particularly guilty of doing everything at 100 miles per hour and then not managing to keep control of the ball in his haste. Some simple changes to the way we approach attacking situations could really make a big difference, as we often do the hard work of carving open opportunities and then spurn them by getting over-excited and not finishing them off.

Kasumu might not be the kind of player you would expect to be a regular source of goals but Holmes, Rudoni and Thomas should be chipping in regularly – all four have yet to notch a single goal this season. This puts too much pressure on our strikers and goals from set pieces. If we are going to start scoring more goals from open play, I have a feeling it’s going to be these attackers that need to build on their recently improved attacking displays by finding their scoring boots.

Towel drama

No write up of this game would be complete without reference to the ball boys and their heroics with the towels. I think they deserve some praise for their efforts, as it takes some guts as a young lad to stand up to pressure from stewards, match officials and angry Millwall players but the messing around with the towels provided a useful distraction at a time when we needed to slow the game down and break Millwall’s momentum.

It also whipped the crowd up and killed a bit of time, all useful to help us hang on to our narrow lead. Lee Nicholls knows all about how those tiny little advantages can make a big difference when you’re seeing out a game, so I’m sure he was also admiring these brave ball boys work with the towels too!

https://twitter.com/CraigHorner1982/status/1586664643992473607

Town off the bottom – out of the drop zone is the next target

Getting back to winning ways was a good feeling but the winning feeling was made even better because we received the psychological boost of no longer being stuck to the bottom of the table either. I’m not motivated by bitterness or spite, so it’s completely irrelevant that Carlos Corberan’s West Brom have replaced us at the bottom of the table (in fairness, with the squad they have it would be crazy if they aren’t pushing for the playoffs by the end of the season now they’ve got rid of their dinner lady manager).

Now Town are off rock bottom, we should be targeting getting out of the relegation zone as quickly as possible. This could come as quickly as Wednesday night if we beat Sunderland and other results go our way.

Having said that, I felt almost completely despondent before the game on Saturday, so it’s hard to believe how completely my attitude about Town has turned around in the space of one game. Things suddenly feel quite optimistic. But another poor performance on Wednesday and it could be back in the doldrums again. So rather than fixating on the league table, maybe the more important thing is that I’d like Town’s performances to stabilise to the point where they don’t send my mood bouncing all over the place like I’m a hormonal teenager.