BFTG - Huddersfield (H)

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

A poor first half cost us the game with the tippy tappy, one directional slow paced football we were intent on playing in own our half.

The introduction of Kuhl at half time with a change of formation got us back in the game. We had some very good chances to get back in the game early on in the half that where not taken with the goal coming too late as we huffed and puffed without creating a lot in the last 10 minutes plus added on time.

Forest and Boro will both be testing for this young team.

[Winston Smith]

MOTM - Wells, by quite some distance. Thought their no.7 was good too

Kuhl looked good after a shaky first few minutes. thought we kept the ball well and waited for the right passes to come up, irrespective of what the boooo boys say

We must have the slowest front line in the football league

[wingnut]

Today's performance/result vindicates those that refused to buy into Saturday's post-match hype.

Today's 1st half was absolute oxf*rd. And not too dissimilar from Saturday's game:
CM partnership was useless, no forward penetration whatsoever.
Attack was toothless, offering nothing.
Fullbacks couldn't cross the half-way line.

The only difference was Huddersfield, unlike Ipswich, did not gift us a goal, and, unlike Ipswich, they pressed us high.

The decision for Akpan and Obita to play virtually as CBs during the first half was absolutely stupid. Was it a spontaneous decision from them, or were they told to do it?
oxf*rd ridiculous either way, and it cost us with goals.

.

Pretty much my take on it too.

Can't help but think all those who praised Saturdays performance (and last nights to a degree) were more concerned with who was playing rather than how they were playing

[hughsies no.1]

Really don't understand the negativity around Blackman still. This season he looks like a different player and in all honesty he was the only attacking threat we had in the first half so was disappointed when he was taken off. Only player willing to run at the Huddersfield defence.

- Impressed with Kuhl and Tanner when they both come on
- Obita is completely wasted in the middle, looked like a different player when moved to left back
- Too much sideways football for me at times, James Harper would have been in his element
- For a team that has conceded 7 goals in opening 2 games and only have to do deal with a shot in the 41st minute last night is worrying
- Feds being back in goal is completely justified with his distribution
- Cant help but think when we have Guthrie, Jem, Williams (Norwood?) & Kuhl as our midfield options Apkan will be shipped out on loan
- As much as I want to see Jake Taylor do well for the club I can't help but think the game completely passes him by. Not sure if he is ready yet and another season on loan would surely help
- Nakhi Wells is a class act and I still think we need to add a striker with pace to latch on to these 'balls inbetween the lines' that NA talks about so often. Perhaps if we get a few bob for McCarthy a £3/4mil bid could test their resolve

To summarise, to many square pegs in circle holes due to the ridiculous injury situation. Prior to last night everyone was chuffed as to how the season has started. Perhaps a game too far, would be great if Guthrie was for Forest Saturday as this will be a huge test. Hector vs Assom (however you spell his name) will be his toughest task at CB this season to date.

[CayeneMatt]

A lot of the Saturday love was borne out of 1. a win, and 2. a great performance by Hector. In reality we had zero midfield and no one willing or able to boss the game.

Last night was an action replay in the 1st half minus the Hector novelty. 2nd half was a different story.

Couldn't believe Blackman got sub'd, he was our only threat going forward. Would've taken Taylor off before Blackman.

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

First half we were awful. Utterly woeful. 73% but with only 1 shot on goal tells it's own story. No adventure in midfield whatsoever, so nobody bothered to put their foot on the ball and look for the forward pass except for Hector. We were poor. Cummings in particular at left back kept slowing the game down to come back in on his right. He was okay defensively tbf, but his limitations going forward mean he shouldn't play there again this season unless it's an emergency. But tbf to Adkins he acknowledged we weren't moving the ball into spaces quick enough and made the necessary changes. Kuhl was excellent, especially when you consider it was his first competitive game of football. And with Obita out on the left bringing it forward we looked like a proper football team. We were the better team second half by quite a considerable distance, but damage was done and Huddersfield could play the way they chose to in the second 45. Learn your lessons Nigel, Kuhl (or Norwood if signed in time) must play on Saturday.

Thought Mackie looked very useful in his little cameo, likewise Tanner.

Gunter was continually rinsed by Bunn, and Taylor was anonymous yet again. Akpan was decent in the second half, but shocking in the first.

The boo boys can take a running jump off of a very high bridge.

Pretty accurate summation IMO Winch. Hector and Akpan will both have to take responsibility for the first, and Gunter for the second. I think Hector had an ok game tonight, but he found Wells a real handful and the Stead came on and beat him in the air to most of the Huddersfield high balls. This young team was punished tonight for two bits of real naivety, but they'll learn and the team will be better for it.

[melonhead]

Lost it on tactics, and two silly mistakes.
On Saturday, we bypassed our lightweight midfield, and that's what we should have done last night, instead of turgid plying through the middle.

But you're going to get inconsistency from kids, especially after 4 games in two weeks

Feds. 6
Pearce 7
Hector 5
Cummings 5
Gunter 6
Obita 6
Akpan 5 sold short with some poor passing, but didn't cope well.
Taylor 4
Cox 6
Pog 5

Mackie kuhl and tanner good as subs

Good service again in the concourse. Beer was decent, and the wrap I had was a lovely
7/10

[Platypuss]

Hopefully that's the last we'll see of the appeasement of Obita's desire to play midfield.

[Blind Bigot]

Huddersfield Town fan's view here!

I know it's a cliche but If you give silly goals away you lose matches, which is exactly what we did in the first two games of this season. As someone above pointed out, once you get a two goal cushion you can play pretty much as you like afterwards and we did that. I was pleased with how we applied ourselves to achieve the lead and at half time I thought we were very good value at 0-2. That said I was more than a little worried when you scored with plenty of time left in the second and genuinely thought all our efforts would be dashed in the closing minutes but it wasn't to be. With the kind of start to the season that we've had, without any luck whatsoever, we were due some and we got that last night. Time wasting is always a negative embarrassment however but as we all know everyone does it in that position late on, although that's no excuse.

I could see your lads are a decent side so I fully expect you to be up there challenging at some point, so good luck. See you all at our place in February!

Regards

Blind Bigot (HTFC)

[Pepe the Horseman]

While you're here, can you tell us a bit about Oliver Norwood?

[Agent Balti]

It's a shame we didn't show the energy we played with in the last 20 minutes in the first half. All the keeping possession of the ball just for keeping it sake was mind numbing. I swear we had more backward passes than forward. Without any form of creativity and vision in midfield we really didn't have much of a clue, and we had more than enough of the ball (but by then Huddersfield were two goals to the good and could sit back.)

The individual errors proved to be massively costly. But there were some positives...Obita returned to left back, Hector did very well despite the obvious error, Kuhl making an impressive debut, Tanner looking tidy, Cox grabbing the ref's face(!) and a tidy finish.

But...Akpan is just a disaster. As soon as he got the ball, he just wanted rid of it. Couldn't pass more than 10 yards, totally afraid to try anything creative. I'm starting to feel sorry for him as he can't take the pressure. Kuhl came on and immediately wanted the ball, wasn't afraid to shift it around or physically compete.

Again, Taylor was absolutely AWOL. I literally did not notice him in the second half. Either he's not taking up decent positions or he wanders into being marked too easily.

Whilst I can stomach the result and the state of our midfield as a mitigating factor, there are signs of improvement. The sooner we get the likes of Williams, Karacan and McCleary back the better.

[Blind Bigot]

While you're here, can you tell us a bit about Oliver Norwood?

Ollie's a cracking player! A bit lightweight perhaps and not a great ball winner but his passing range is superb, he has vision and an excellent shot on him. Looking at your midfield I'd say he'd be an excellent addition because it looks like you need someone to put their foot on it and open up defences. I hope do does well if he goes!

[Sanguine]

Oh yeh, Cox seems to have a Piano on his back don't remember him being that slow. Easily outpaced by huddersfields defenders on a number of occasions.

See my post after the Ipswich game. He looks too big. Not fat, just big.

[Jano]

Ref was poor. Too many passes out to an invisible player on the left wing (not Taylor, just to no one that I could see). First half was atrocious and Adkins got the subs right. Shame he didn't get the starting line up right.

I thought our inexperience shone through, Wells and the entire Huddersfield front line taught Hector what I hope will be a valuable lesson on the dirtier side of the game last night, hopefully he will learn from it and be able to combat it in the future, but he was clearly rattled and wasn't a happy bunny for most of the game. Wells for me was by far the best player on the pitch and what he is doing playing there I have no idea. Should be at a much better club.

Convinced we need a proper centre forward to play in front of Cox, Mackie and Pog. Pog just isn't a striker. Kuhl needs to be brought into the team but he also needs protecting. Huddersfield saw the danger pretty quickly and plonked their number 6 on him, and I was cringing pretty much every challenge as it looked like he was going to snap the kid in half, fair play to him though as he seemed to just get on with it. Reminded me massively of Luka Modric and I can't understand why we are trying to buy Norwood when we have this guy,

The goals were poor but they were bound to happen at some point.

[Pepe the Horseman]

While you're here, can you tell us a bit about Oliver Norwood?

Ollie's a cracking player! A bit lightweight perhaps and not a great ball winner but his passing range is superb, he has vision and an excellent shot on him. Looking at your midfield I'd say he'd be an excellent addition because it looks like you need someone to put their foot on it and open up defences. I hope do does well if he goes!

Cheers geez. He's been getting a lot of stick from your lot on twitter, but guess that's the norm when a player leaves a club. Who's going to be your new manager?

[Brum Royal]

From the whole second half performance I thought we deserved at least a draw, but we never seemed to get the rub of the green with ref. He seemed to have different standards for ref kicks we conceded or got.

Without going into too much detail on the game or Huddersfield, no more blatant inconsistent decision making than to not award a free kick to Gunter for the foul (it was a foul) in the buildup to their second, then award a free kick to Pog for exactly the same thing less than a minute later. Ultimately Stuart Attwell had no bearing on the result, but that's not to say he's not a oxf*rd piss poor referee. The worst in the league. Some basic, basic stuff missed in every game.

'Greed HH. Attwell is a terrible referee, gave some utterly baffling decisions (both ways), BUT that certainly does not mean he cost us the game.

Two individual errors to give away sloppy goals. Definitely in the camp of it being Hector's fault rather than Akpan's. Hector decent, although up against a very tricky forward, Akpan pretty weak throughout.

The biggest weakness in the team at the moment is the left wing, as I've written in both the Wigan and Newport BFTG threads (and was the same against Ipswich). Cummings comes inside too much where he's so right footed, turning his back on the winger in front of him to go on to his strong foot. That said, Taylor didn't offer enough width on the left, drifting inside too often, and it's clear he's not really a winger - he doesn't really seem confident enough to take on a fullback and whip in a cross like an out and out winger would do. We looked a lot more balanced (again) when we made the substitution at half time (good decision again Nige) to move Obita to left back and provide genuine width. I'd heard a lot about Kuhl, but barring 45 mins at Exeter in pre-season, I'd not seen anything of him, but have to say I was mighty impressed and we should be looking to start him against Forest, which should free up Obita to play left back/left wing and give us a lot better balance going forwards.

I thought Blackman was good again last night, whatever they've done to him over the summer has certainly worked, he's been our best player overall across the four games played so far this season. Thought he was a little unlucky to be subbed last night, as he was causing real problems down the right wing. I think we're starting to see the player emerging that made Brian want to sign him.

Feds looked like he should have done better with the second goal, although I've not seen the replay of it yet.

[Elm Park Kid]

While you're here, can you tell us a bit about Oliver Norwood?

Ollie's a cracking player! A bit lightweight perhaps and not a great ball winner but his passing range is superb, he has vision and an excellent shot on him. Looking at your midfield I'd say he'd be an excellent addition because it looks like you need someone to put their foot on it and open up defences. I hope do does well if he goes!

That's' a bit worrying as neither Guthrie nor Williams (arguably our two 'best' midfielders) are great ball winners either. I suppose with the amount of injuries they get though that Norwood would be a cheap back up to them.

I was originally a supporter of Akpan but he's clearly not a long term option for us.

Kuhl looked good last night when he was on the ball but I personally wasn't convinced about him off the ball. His positioning when defending wall all over the shop.

We still need that strong DM, Leigertwood style player who's going to impose themselves in midfield.

[loyalroyal4life]

Do have to say aswell Jake Taylor didn't really do anything tonight. Really like the lad and you can see he's Reading through & through, but looks a little out of his depth. That said he's out of position, so may well benefit with some game time in his preferred role.

Surprised he stayed on, would have taken him off stuck blackman on left and put mackie on right. Thought NA had a shocker with the subs

[loyalroyal4life]

Christ, Hector MOTM, really?

Hospital pass to Akpan for the goal, nearly gave away a pen in the first half with a late slide, turned by Wells constantly but especially late on in the corner who went down looking for a pen instead of going for the shot.

If we're in the process of fanboy-ing Academy products, I'll give MOTM to Kuhl, who actually didn't put a foot wrong.

Totally agree, what passes did he pick?? Second half all his attempts to put it down the line went out of play!!?

[Pepe the Horseman]

While you're here, can you tell us a bit about Oliver Norwood?

Ollie's a cracking player! A bit lightweight perhaps and not a great ball winner but his passing range is superb, he has vision and an excellent shot on him. Looking at your midfield I'd say he'd be an excellent addition because it looks like you need someone to put their foot on it and open up defences. I hope do does well if he goes!

That's' a bit worrying as neither Guthrie nor Williams (arguably our two 'best' midfielders) are great ball winners either. I suppose with the amount of injuries they get though that Norwood would be a cheap back up to them.

I was originally a supporter of Akpan but he's clearly not a long term option for us.

Kuhl looked good last night when he was on the ball but I personally wasn't convinced about him off the ball. His positioning when defending wall all over the shop.

We still need that strong DM, Leigertwood style player who's going to impose themselves in midfield.

Williams is a ball winner.