Town win in spite of spurned chances – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 2-0 win over Leyton Orient

Huddersfield Town won 2-0 at Leyton Orient last night, in a game where they created enough chances to win by five or six goals but due to poor finishing and incompetent strikers, the game was much closer than it needed to be. Town haven’t won an away game since Bolton back in September, so this was an important win, even if there were elements of the performance that could have been better.

Grumbling after winning is becoming a nasty habit of mine after Town games but it’s hard to talk about a game like this without pointing out the negatives as well as the positives. On the brighter side, Town carved out plenty of chances to win the game comfortably and showed good resolve and organisation when Orient had a strong spell at the start of the second half. It’s also worth remembering that not too long ago we were losing games like this, so at least we’re finding ways to win even if our poor finishing means we have to create more chances than usual to eventually score one. 

Spurned chances and misfiring strikers

Town missed so many chances in this game. I’ll run through the best of them:

• Turton put a killer ball into the box and Radulovic could have scored with even a scuffed contact but couldn’t sort his feet out. Koroma was following in at the far post but was both offside and didn’t make proper contact with the ball anyway.
• Ben Wiles took advantage of an untimely slip to race through for a one-on-one with the keeper which he skewed wide.
• Koroma won a slightly iffy penalty by chucking himself down in the box but couldn’t convert with his poorly placed effort. (He’s now off penalty duty apparently.)
• Wiles had another shot that wasn’t on the highlights package which also went wide but was an easier opportunity than many of the goals he’s scored this season.
• Ladapo had several opportunities that a fitter and sharper striker would have converted but he looked like he was playing in concrete boots and he showed why we’ve seen so little of him so far. The worst example came when he lashed a ridiculously hopeful ball from thirty yards out when Ben Wiles was in space and begging to be played in. 

Thankfully, Helik and Marshall found the net and we came away with the three points we deserved but not every game will produce so many presentable chances and this kind of wastefulness will cost us if it continues. 

The strikers can shoulder a lot of the blame, as all four that featured in this game were poor to some extent or another. Even Marshall, who got on the scoresheet, was little more than a pest rather than showing the kind of class you would hope to see from a Premier League loanee. His persistence was rewarded with a goal though, which is deserved because he does provide good energy at the top end of the field with his crisp-packet-chasing style of covering lots of ground. 

Radulovic continues to start games despite disappointing every outing. He’s got a nice touch and can link up play well when he drops into midfield but he’s woeful in the final third. His movement and anticipation are way off and he looks to be actively avoiding getting on the end of chances. I’ve always hoped that he might come good but given the opportunities he’s had, that hope is starting to dwindle.

Koroma won a penalty by throwing himself down but otherwise didn’t make a consistent impact on the game. When he did get into decent areas with the ball, he reverted to his usual routine of constantly trying to get onto his right foot to get away a curling shot. This was easily anticipated by Leyton Orient’s defenders and therefore he was not much of a threat.

Freddie Ladapo’s signing is increasingly looking like a misstep. Despite claims we’d been tracking him for a long time, he looks completely off the pace and unfit even though he’s been at the club for a few months now. I appreciate match fitness is only built up by playing minutes but with these sorts of performances he’s putting in, it’s hard to imagine he will feature much.

Oh, and Danny Ward pulled out of the squad late on because he was sick. I’ll not say any more about that because it’s already been done to death.

But there were plenty of positives to take from this game

I watched the game on TV and the camera angle at the Gaughan Group stadium was far higher than usual and quite zoomed out, so it gave a great view of how the game was unfolding. Not the same as being there but more like being sat in the stands compared to the usual camera angle. From this vantage point it was possible to really appreciate the whole-team press that Town applied to Leyton Orient in possession, with every player sticking to their job and making it hard for Orient to settle on the ball.

Town’s pressing was excellent in this game and as well as limiting Leyton Orient’s opportunities by squeezing them all over the pitch, it was also our biggest attacking threat too. While we didn’t take advantage of all of them, we carved out multiple goal scoring chances by pushing up and catching our opponent in possession. 

The attacking play from Town wasn’t fluent or crisp in this game but the relentless pressure on the Leyton Orient players led to them frequently coughing the ball up in dangerous areas, particularly in the second half when tired legs became a factor. So even if we aren’t creating much off our own backs, we can consistently cause other teams problems by stealing the ball off them and attacking them while they’re shifting from attacking to defending.

We also continue to be a menace at set pieces, with Helik taking over Pearson’s role as the main threat from corners. Like with Pearson at the weekend, Helik can not only find space in the box but also has the heading ability to convert chances most would not. 

I also think Kasumu and Kane are starting to look like a very productive partnership. Kane was tightly marked for a lot of this game, so didn’t get the freedom to show off his full range of passing but Kasumu made up for that with his regular line-breaking runs to carry the ball up the field.  

Mickel Miller’s injury is a huge blow 

The injury to Mickel Miller was a bit of a freak, as it happened as a result of a Leyton Orient player getting shoved over by a Town player then falling awkwardly on Miller’s leg, bending his knee in the way knees are definitely not meant to be bent. The same thing happened to Yuta Nakayama last season and he had a lengthy layoff as a result, so while Michael Duff suggested it might not be too bad, I suspect he’ll be out of action for a while. The reaction from Miller alone was enough to suggest he’d been quite badly damaged by the falling Orient player. 

Losing Miller is particularly worrying because his position is probably the most specialised in the squad behind the goalkeeper. Our options for this position are Jaheim Headley and Josh Ruffels, with Headley in rotten form whenever he’s been given a chance and Ruffels having been virtually frozen out of matchday squads, even in the Bristol Street Motors Cup games (which is now called something else but I’ve only just got out of the habit of calling it the Auto Windscreens Trophy, so I’m not changing just yet).

Headley has been given plenty of chances this season and has struggled in every game apart from his excellent showing in the cup against Morecambe in the early part of the season. My reluctant view on him now is that he’s not just having a bad patch but instead is just not up to the standard required. Which is a shame given his obvious attributes but he’s too error prone to be trusted in the starting lineup. 

Josh Ruffels must have fallen down the pecking order for a reason but he put in a solid performance against Leyton Orient and I hope he’s the longer term replacement for Miller too. It wasn’t so long ago that Neil Warnock was hailing him as the best leftback in the Championship, which was partly Warnock hyperbole but also reflected the excellent performances he put in during Warnock’s stint at Town. If Duff can help him find that kind of form again in the left wingback role then we might not miss Miller too much. 

Michael Duff has talked in the past about how important the wingback positions are in his system, so the fact our two specialists that we signed in the summer, Miller and Sorensen, are out injured may be a problem. Turton and Ruffels are competent replacements but there are reasons why both weren’t getting into matchday squads until injuries started to pile up.

Town go into a busy December in a good position

Despite grumbling about the strikers and the wasted chances in this game, the win solidified our place in the playoff positions and helped us to keep pace with the other teams around us at the top end of the league. After a blip in September, some good results and increased consistency has helped us to claw our way back into the rough area we want to be. 

A few months ago a top two finish seemed unthinkable but now we’ve strung together some decent results it doesn’t feel out of the question. There are six league games and one in the cup in December. If Town can keep on stringing together results then they could find themselves climbing the table between now and the New Year.