The Herbie Kane Soap Opera – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 2-0 win over Barnsley

What a difference a game can make! After the gloom was starting to gather over Town following four consecutive defeats, the team put in a much-needed display against Barnsley on Saturday, winning 2-0 and deservingly coming out on top.

While one game doesn’t change everything and the problems we’ve seen in recent games could still be festering under the surface, this game did feel significant beyond the result and could potentially act as a turning point in the season. It will hopefully mark the end of our poor run and be a transition into a happier spell for Michael Duff and his squad of players.

Here are some of my thoughts from the game.

Town dominated the first half without getting their reward

Like the way heavyweight boxers will probe with their jabs in the early rounds of a prizefight, there wasn’t much between the two teams early on as they felt each other out. But as the game settled down it was Town that grabbed the initiative, as we dominated possession and carved out some excellent chances over the course of the first half. 

A handful of first class saves from their keeper and a couple of good blocks kept Barnsley in the game but Town created enough decent chances to have scored multiple goals in the first half and were unlucky not to be ahead. Arguably the finishing could have been better and I felt annoyed at the time that we hadn’t made more of those opportunities. But having now seen the replays, I think it was a case of Barnsley pulling off some decent last ditch defending and their keeping having a particularly good day.  

Kasumu had a great dipping shot saved, Wiles header was saved at full stretch, Marshall had a shot blocked, Radulovic had one saved and one blocked. So between all those chances on average at least one would usually go in. But at least Town kept plugging away rather than letting their frustration get the better of them and losing their heads, as we’ve seen in recent matches where mental fragility seems to have cost us.

A less convincing second half ends 2-0 to Town

While Town’s goals all came in the second half, we didn’t play quite so well and it was more of an even contest during this period of the game. We still had our moments, but Barnsley did too and we had to soak up some pressure at times. 

In fact, Ben Wiles’ goal came after Town won the ball back following Barnsley’s best spell of the game, where they had put us under a spell of pressure for a good amount of time. The goal came from excellent combination play between substitutes Herbie Kane and Freddie Ladapo out on the wing before Kane showed great vision to pick out Wiles on the edge of the box, in frankly far too much space. The finish was excellent but it would have been rude not to blast it into the top corner when allowed so much time in that area to get your shot away. 

While Town had been very good most of the game up to the opening goal, the final ball had often been wanting. Crosses, pull backs and shots had often been not quite good enough quality to get a goal. Herbie Kane had the bit of class we needed to play the killer ball to find Wiles, who in turn could apply a lovely finish. It was shaping up to be a frustrating afternoon up to this point, so having a player like Kane with his range of passing really paid off here.

Town then did well to fend off Barnsley’s fairly limp attempts to force themselves back into the game and Kasumu’s late goal was a much-deserved icing on the cake. I’ll talk more about Kasumu and his excellent performance later.

The most balanced Town selection of the Duff era?

This might not have been the strongest lineup Town have fielded this season but I think it was the most balanced and possibly the most suited to play the Michael Duff style of football.

In defence we saw Matty Pearson moved into the central role of the back three, with Nigel Lonwijk brought into the left side of defence and Brodie Spencer moved over to replace Tom Lees, who dropped to the bench. Spencer and Lonwijk are both pretty quick, so were better at covering in behind the wingbacks when required as well as stepping forward to join attacks themselves from time to time. This was particularly true of Spencer, who seemed a lot happier to underlap Sorensen on his preferred right side than when he played the equivalent position on the left and looked more tentative when progressing up the pitch. Pearson seemed much more at home in the middle of defence, with more kicking and heading responsibilities and fewer demands to play fancy football (which nearly always ends with him kicking it into the stands or to the opposition keeper anwyay).

In midfield there were even bigger changes, with the usual set up of one defensive midfielder and two more attack-minded players flipped around with Hodge and Kasumu both sitting a bit deeper and Ben Wiles having license to join the attack. Playing with two holding midfielders and one attacking midfielder may seem like a negative move but in too many games Wiles and Evans have trotted forward when we’ve had possession and watched as Hogg, Sorensen or Miller have had no options to pass to because both our creative midfielders have pushed up too early and are marked out of the game. So having just one attacking midfielder means we’re less swamped in the middle of the park and makes us stronger both in terms of building up attacking moves and giving us some bite when we don’t have the ball. Hodge and Kasumu are a good combination too, as Hodge has a bit of quality and vision whereas Kasumu has the engine to cover lots of ground but needs someone behind him to make sure the gaps are still covered. 

Up front, I think it’s too early to say Marshall and Radulovic are a good partnership but it has the makings of one. Marshall likes to run around chasing crisp packets and Radulovic should be the person in the box finishing every chance that comes his way. If these two were given a run of games together, it’s possible an understanding and a partnership could build as both came close to scoring in this game on multiple occasions. I’m perhaps being a bit (blindly) optimistic here but it’s possible to see how a player that likes to drop off and use frenetic energy to create things could complement another player that wants to be as close to goal as possible to convert chances. 

Another piece of the puzzle that dropped into place nicely on Saturday was Chapman’s distribution. The young Aussie keeper didn’t have loads of work to do in terms of keeping Barnsley out but his passing out from the back was excellent at times. I particularly liked his ability to make mid-range kicks out to the wingbacks when they were in space. These twenty to thirty yard passes are really handy to kick-start possession without having to either contest headers or go through the riskier route of passing out via central defence. Nicholls isn’t the most accurate kicker and I don’t remember Maxwell’s being amazing either, so perhaps Chapman’s ability with his feet could propel him up the pecking order as it helps us a lot with our possession game. The fact he seems OK with all his other goalkeeperly duties is promising too.

David Kasumu’s best game in a Town shirt 

I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite, so I’ll start off by saying that I’ve never been a huge fan of David Kasumu. I’ve always liked his work rate and desire to put his foot in but the lack of quality in terms of his passing and lack of composure in the final third have put me off him a bit. I’m always happy to be wrong when it comes to players overcoming low expectations and that’s what Kasumu has done lately. He was good against Birmingham on Tuesday night but found an extra gear against Barnsley and was my pick for Man of the Match.

I’ve talked already about how the system we used suited his skills but he played particularly well and showed good leadership qualities in a fairly young Huddersfield Town team on the pitch. The thing I really liked about him was the way he used the ball better than he often does, with some genuine quality on his passes, with the weight of pass on his through balls more thoughtfully applied and obviously the goal he scored showing he can finish too. Though the shot he had saved would have been just as good a goal if the keeper wasn’t in such fine form. 

With Anthony Evans no doubt wanting his place back in the team, Joe Hodge playing well, Jonathan Hogg always being an option no matter how old he is, Herbie Kane getting back to fitness and Tom Iorpenda looking good whenever he gets a chance, the central midfield is probably the best stocked position Town have in terms of quality and depth this season. Kasumu finding this kind of form may be partly down to an awareness of this competition for places. Whatever the reason, it’s welcome to see him finding his best form in a Town shirt. And whatever I might have said about him in the past, I think he’s a great player now. 

The Herbie Kane soap opera 

I sit in the Riverside Lower, fairly far from the away end, so I don’t pay much attention to the noise the opposition fans make. But I couldn’t help but notice that our South Yorkshire neighbours made an absolute racket when Herbie Kane was subbed on in the second half, far more so than at any point prior to that during the game. 

Based on their behaviour, it looked to me like a pretty large chunk of the away end had paid their entrance fee just so they could sing songs to the former love of their life, who they now hate with a white hot passion that a therapist might call “problematic”. While I’m sure Barnsley fans didn’t only spend their ticket money to vent their feelings of rejection and disappointment at Herbie Kane, that did seem to be their major reason for visiting Huddersfield last Saturday. The rest of the game was a mere bonus for them. 

Unfortunately for the Barnsley fans, the expression of their deeply held emotions to the source of their complicated feelings didn’t end like a rom-com. Instead it was like an erotic thriller where the object of your affection stabs you in the heart with an ice pick. Herbie Kane, instead of realising that it was Barnsley that he loved after all, delivered the assist that won the game for Town. And I suspect that spite may have helped fuel Kane’s run down the wing after his every touch was met with jeers from the away end (though I also wouldn’t rule out a pre-game pint of Bisto hidden in a Lucozade bottle also helping to power our midfield maestro too). 

One win completely changes the landscape for Town

On Saturday morning Town were fifteenth in the table, hadn’t won in four league games, had only won one in their last seven games in all competitions and everything was feeling pretty miserable about the club. One good performance and result suddenly makes things not feel half as gloomy. We’re now ninth in the table, which isn’t good compared to our lofty ambitions for the season but we’re one point away from a playoff position and only five points away from Wrexham in the second automatic playoff spot (and we play them fairly soon, so could close this gap down pretty quickly). 

It would be naive to think that one win can erase all of Town’s problems but it’s possible that this game could be the turning point that Town need. They play Barnsley again on Tuesday in the Bristol Street Motors Cup, which is a pointless competition (until we get close to winning it) but I think we need to take the game seriously as winning is a habit and one we’ve slipped out of. Getting another win in this game will keep the good mood alive going into the international break and give us a fresh sense of optimism to carry into the next block of games.