The Josh Ruffels finishing school, understudies shine, QPR poor, goal dissected – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s first away win of the season

When Danny Ward spurned a presentable chance in the opening seconds of last night’s game and then QPR went straight up the other end and scored the opening goal it felt like it was going to be a long night for Town. And then it suddenly wasn’t. The script of recent weeks was torn up and instead of Town playing well but ultimately losing, they got their noses in front and then hung on until the final whistle.

It wasn’t always pretty but Town deserved the three points for showing the character and nerve to dig in and resist relentless pressure from QPR. The second half was hard to watch from a Town perspective as we went long periods without meaningful possession but we stuck to our task and came away with three vital points and a renewed sense of hope.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the game…

The Josh Ruffels finishing school

Town have been really struggling in front of goal in recent weeks, so it really needed someone within the squad to step up and take on goal-scoring responsibilities. Of all the names I had in mind to grasp the nettle and score audacious goals, Josh Ruffels wasn’t in my mind but he was the man that decided to take on that role.

In fairness, as good as his opening strike was, it fell nicely for him from a knock knock down off a set piece so there wasn’t a lot of thinking before he hit the ball. But the technique on the strike was excellent and he managed to get both power and placement on Town’s equaliser.

It was Ruffel’s second goal that really got people out of their chairs though. My wife tried to claim he was lucky with his overhead flick and was surprised with my outraged protest but there was no luck with what he did. He had easier options available to him but decided to do something special and it came off for him. The knee to tee himself up and the shot as he was falling backwards were obviously intentional and happened exactly as he intended.

Whether our second goal was poor goalkeeping is a more interesting question. I personally think that modern keepers spend far too much time far too far off their lines in general and are wide open to be lobbed. But given so few goals are conceded this way, they must feel it’s a worthwhile gamble to be a few paces off their line to be ready to rush out if needed. Even so, he seemed slow to react to the shot and would have been disappointed to have got caught out by such a cheeky finish.

If you’ve not watched it yet, I’d recommend watching Ruffel’s post-match interview. He comes across as a really lovely bloke and is obviously delighted both with his goals but also to have got a chance to be playing again. He’s had to wait patiently to be selected since joining, so it’s good that he’s getting some rewards now.

Town finally get a reward for a decent performance

QPR fans no doubt came away from this game feeling a little bit hard done by. They most likely came out on top of all of the stats apart from the all-important one: goals. But we’ve had too many games recently where we’ve come away thinking we’ve played well but lost. So winning a game after not being the best team is no bad thing at all.

And actually, in its own way, this was a good Town performance anyway. Instead of playing attractive football, this was all about digging in and being hard to beat. It was a good example of how to be an away team. We were a threat on the break, we were dangerous at set pieces and were difficult to break down. That was enough for us to get the three points.

When we are back to full strength it will be nice to see us showing a bit more ambition when we travel away from home but in the circumstances this was the absolute right approach. With a weakened team, against a good footballing team, we would have been daft to have tried to play expansive football. Being compact and aggressive worked well and it’s good for the players confidence to show we can be hard to beat in games where it isn’t all going our way.

Town’s understudies shine 

The players Town are missing would easily beat the players Town started last night’s game if they were to play each other in a game. Have a look at the eleven you could make:

Turton, Lees, Pearson, Nakayama

Hogg, Camara,

Jones, Kasumu, Anjorin, 

Simpson

But the scratch team that Town fielded last night did remarkably well. And I thought some of our best players were the ones that were stepping up to the first team. Will Boyle and Brahima Diarra in particular deserve special mention. Boyle might have lost his man for the opening goal but the whole defensive unit fell to pieces for that moment, after that he was solid as a rock for the whole game. Like last Saturday, he covered for lots of his teammates’ mistakes and looked strong in the tackle whenever the ball came near him. 

Diarra was a constant nuisance to QPR, buzzing around and pressing their backline, then nipping in to get on the ball when he got the chance. He didn’t have the space to play his natural dribbling game in  a congested midfield but he still drew plenty of useful fouls and helped the team where he could.

One of the B Team players that had a tougher evening was Brodie Spencer, who was caught with an overlapping run on his flank for the opening goal and had to be helped out a few times by those around him. It was a smart decision to sub him at half time after he picked up a booking as he was on a knife edge and might have seen red if his winger was past him and he had an opportunity to take him down to stop a chance developing. It’s still obvious that Spencer is a top prospect and has a big future but he’s making a big step up so it’s natural there will be difficult games for him. I’m sure he’ll bounce back

While I’ve stopped thinking of him as a B Team player, it’s also worth mentioning that Ben Jackson had a good game. He showed the kind of passion and determination that have quickly become trademarks of his game. He’s only been in the team a few weeks now but he already feels like a regular. His versatility and likeability make him very hard to drop. He’s the exact kind of player that Town fans typically love because he’s 100% committed in everything he does and obviously wants to do well for the club. 

QPR couldn’t turn possession into goals

I’ve been very complimentary of Town so far but it’s worth mentioning that QPR were also poor too. We did a great job of frustrating them and making them try to force things when they weren’t on. In Chris Willock and Illias Chair they have two of the most dangerous players in the Championship but neither was able to either create decent chances for a colleague or score for themselves. It was testament to our performance that many of their attacks broke down due to speculative efforts from range because they couldn’t get through.

Having said that, there were enough opportunities for QPR to score where they didn’t finish well enough. Lee Nicholls made some good saves and there were some poor misses too. But I suppose not every team has a natural finisher like Josh Ruffels on their team.

The goal Town conceded was diabolical

Despite the fact we won the game, I’m still disgusted with the goal Town conceded in the opening minutes of the game. It was the kind of soft goal I thought we’d managed to cut out but we allowed QPR to play right through us like they were carrying out a training exercise against cones rather than actual defenders that are allowed to try and stop the ball.

A lot of the damage is done in the build up, before the ball down the wing is played in. The winger just walked past Brodie Spencer and was goal side of him to start with and Spencer allowed this to happen, so when the ball was played our young fullback had no chance of winning the race to the ball because he switched off. 

Then when the winger got to the byline Will Boyle decided to walk towards the ball and leave his man, Josh Ruffels didn’t have the time to close the gap and Lyndon Dykes had a tap in because our defence had forgotten how to do the basics. Basic stuff. 

It was painful to watch in real time and even worse to watch back on the replays. Absolutely woeful. The only thing I’ll say in favour of the defence is that they sorted their act out pretty quickly after that and put in one of the best defensive displays of the season from the third minute onwards, so they’ve redeemed themselves afterwards. And thankfully we scored the goals to make the improved performances actually mean something this time too. 

First away win of the season

I watched this game on iFollow in the comfort of my living room, so I don’t deserve any credit but there are a subsection of long-suffering Town fans that need a special mention. There are probably a few hundred fans that go to literally every single game. Home and away. Win, lose or draw. Only, it’s been just lose and draw this season until last night because our away record until this game had been played eight, lost six, drawn two. 

So I think those long-suffering fans that schlep up and down the country to watch Town struggle earned their moment of glory in the capital last night. Well done to those fans! It’s been a tough season so far for Town fans, so it was nice to have a victory to celebrate for once. Whether that one win makes it all worthwhile is debatable but at least we’ve finally won one and that monkey is now off our backs. 

Looking ahead to Swansea on Saturday

It’s going to go from feast to famine in terms of Town games, as we have our fifth Town game in 15 days but also our final game for a month as things break up for the World Cup. It will be another tough game though as Swansea are one of the league’s better footballing sides who will try to pass us to death and try to dominate possession.

Fotheringham will have to decide whether to allow an away side to come to our stadium and keep the ball off us so we can be compact and organised or whether to try and match them at their own game and unsettle them. It’ll be an interesting tactical battle and I’m not sure what the best choice will be. 

As a home fan, you don’t really want to see your team have 25% possession. But on the other hand, it might be playing to Swansea’s strengths if we try to play them at their own game and try to play like Barcelona when we’ve got a dramatically weakened team. 

Sadly, the results of other games mean that Town can’t go into the World Cup break out of the relegation zone but the gap is now just four points, so a win for Town and kind results elsewhere could narrow the gap to just two points. That would make the month-long wait for a Town game seem a lot less painful.