Wembley hotel booking, our hat-trick hero, unleashing the attack, Reading relegation fodder and a leaky defence – Notes on Reading away

Huddersfield Town came away victorious from a seven-goal thriller against Reading at the weekend. The game was a hodge podge of great attacking football, woeful defending and a wide range of tactics and formations for each unique part of the game. 

There are some games where it’s a struggle to think of talking points to fill a blogpost but the opposite is true of this game. There are almost too many things to talk about. So rather than waste time on these introductory paragraphs that most people skip over, I’ll get straight into it.

Hat-trick hero 

The only possible candidate for Man of the Match is Danny Ward, his three goals and incredible graft made this the high point of his return to Town after some fairly dark days in the not-too-distant past. 

Almost no Town fans expected to see the kind of turn around in form we’ve seen from him this season and it’s to his credit that he kept plugging away and is now getting the rewards for his hard work. At the start of the season he was badly out of form, the fans were on his back and he looked to be without the poacher’s instinct of appearing in the right place at the right time.

His third goal was the pick of the bunch, obviously, it was such a sweet strike with his weaker foot but the other two are pleasing in a different way. How many times have we seen loose balls in the box fall harmlessly to opposition defenders in recent seasons? Or a keeper fumbles the ball and then quickly recovers because we weren’t applying enough pressure? Those first two goals for Ward could be dismissed as tap ins but the fact he was lurking in just the right spot to finish those chances is a sign he’s now occupying the right positions when he’s on the pitch. 

Nobody is calling him a winger that can’t play as a striker any more either, which shows that he’s starting to win over those that doubted him. He’s now on 10 goals, which is the most league goals he’s ever scored in a season and it’s only January. One more goal will make this his most prolific season ever, having scored ten in a season previously in his first spell at Town and once for Rotherham. 

Unleashing the attack 

The first half an hour of this game was absolutely bonkers. Town ran Reading ragged for periods, attacking with numbers and intent whenever they got on the ball. But in throwing everything at Reading they also left the back door wide open for them to counter attack. 

While the quality of Town’s attacks often let them down, it was nice to watch us take the brakes off and really go after a team. We’d most likely lose in the majority of games with this approach but Reading were there for the taking and looked very poor when we attacked them. 

So much of Town’s success this season has come from having a solid base and keeping things tight. This has led to many games where we’ve had to settle for watching Town defend a lot and attack with caution. The more swashbuckling approach we employed against Reading was a complete contrast and perhaps points to an alternative way of playing when we’re up against an opponent that is low in confidence and, to quote Dad’s Army, doesn’t like it up them. 

Leaving the back door open 

The reason we’re not going to see Town trying to blow away our opponents too often this season is evident from the goals against column. Despite Reading putting in one of the worst performances I’ve seen by a Championship team in the first half, they still went into the break drawing 3-3. It would be churlish to not acknowledge how well both Joao and Puscas finished their chances but all three goals were more a symptom of terrible Town defending than brilliant play from Reading.

The first two Reading goals could have been easily snuffed out if Town had players doing the basics of their jobs right. Both fullbacks were caught badly out of position for the first, making it very simple for Reading to get clean through on goal within a couple of passes. The second came when Toffolo had deserted his left back area and the space was easily exploited by Reading. 

Having attacking fullbacks is a part of modern football. Alexander-Arnold and Robertson at Liverpool are often their most potent attacking threats despite being defenders. Pipa and Toffolo aren’t of the same quality but have a similar attacking mindset, when they’re part of a back fir they need to be more mindful of their defensive responsibilities. 

Missing Colwill and three at the back 

It’s hard to imagine we would have conceded in the same way if we had been playing a back three on Saturday as we surely wouldn’t have been so short staffed at the back. These goals would also have been even less likely if we had Colwill available, as his recovery pace often makes up for Lees and Pearson’s lack of speed. The fact Toffolo was pulled in as a makeshift third centre back later in the game is proof that the bench saw this as a problem area too. 

Having an extra centre back in the team means having one fewer player further up the pitch but it also means wingbacks venturing forward don’t leave gaping holes at the back to exploit. 

It seems that Colwill’s injury is relatively minor, so hopefully he’ll be back to full training this week and be ready to come straight back into the lineup against Stoke on Friday. It’s a worry that we’ve become so dependent on an 18-year-old loanee but we do not look as good when he’s not in the team. 

Holding on to a lead 

One pleasing element of this game was how we switched tactics in the second half, once we were 4-3 up and managed to see out the game with a more defensive mentality. Reading came out after the break looking a bit more organised and on balance it seemed relatively sensible to try and shore things up rather than keeping going and aiming to win 9-8.

In the last few weeks there have been a few occasions where Town have held the lead and lost it. Last weekend at Swansea we almost played dead for long periods of the second half, such was their dominance and our passivity. We did a much better job of controlling this game when we tried to sit on our lead. We had a threat on the counter, didn’t allow them to get on the ball in dangerous areas and kept a good shape for the majority of the time.

It was a slightly nervous finish to the game but it felt much less like a fluke that we held onto this lead and more a result of being well organised. It was perhaps a gamble to switch to a more conservative approach when we only led by a single goal but the players carried out the instruction well.

It’s been commented on before by The Examiner podcast, but Town really need to start winning games more comfortably. Rather than clinging on to a single goal lead we should try and get two or even more ahead in games and then fans might not have to have their nerves shredded quite so much.

Reading in a death spiral 

Despite not being in the relegation places currently, I would tip Reading for the drop based on this performance. Despite scoring three goals and having the majority of the possession, I thought they were very poor. 

Their half-hearted and disorganised defending in the first half reminded me of Town at their worst under Jan Siewert. There was no energy, no clue and no teamwork. They looked like eleven individuals that had not met until kickoff. 

The fact that Town weren’t three or four goals up by the break is testament to the fact we’re a team that’s still a work in progress. A better drilled and more ruthless team would have surely taken advantage of the soft underbelly Reading rolled over and exposed so readily. 

The funny thing about the Championship is how quickly teams can turn around their fortunes, so Reading aren’t sunk yet. But after seeing every team play Town at least once this season, I can’t think of a worse performance than that first half Reading put in. 

Time to book the Wembley hotel?

This victory took Town back into the playoff positions, albeit with teams below having games in hand that could lead to them overtaking us. Is it time to think of Town as genuine playoff contenders? I think we have to, we’re too far into the season to think we’re there by luck alone. While there’s still a lot of football to be played, all Town have to do is maintain their form and they’ll be there or thereabouts in May.

Interestingly, the bookies aren’t so optimistic about Town’s prospects of going up. Town are currently 28/1 to be promoted this season despite being sixth in the league. Teams below us in the league are far shorter odds than this, presumably because of their superior squads and the continued belief that Town are relegation fodder that have temporarily overachieved.

I don’t think promotion is likely for Town this season but even a pessimist like me thinks that 28/1 is too long. Bookies rarely get these things wrong but what if Town win their next two home league games against Stoke and Derby? The Wembley Travelodge is currently £150 for the night of the playoff final, while things are going well for Town right now I’ll wait a bit longer before booking.