Huddersfield Town’s clean shorts defending and infinite scoring variety among five conclusions
Huddersfield Town got their massive eight days off to the best possible start as they claimed a 2-0 victory over fellow top six contenders Luton Town to put themselves back to third in the table and take a massive stride towards qualifying for the play-offs.
Second-half goals by Jon Russell and Naby Sarr either side of a Luton penalty that Elijah Adebayo put against the post were enough to seal three huge points at the John Smith’s Stadium in a cagey game that saw both sides put in solid defensive performances.
The result puts the Terriers in a strong position going into their final five games of the regular season with their gap to seventh-placed Blackburn Rovers extended to six points – which may yet get cut down to four, should Middlesbrough win their game in hand. Here are our five conclusions on an excellent night for Carlos Corberan’s side.
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1. Strong defending provided the platform for victory in a game of fine margins
Both sides found it hard to fashion clear-cut chances before Jon Russell’s brilliant 59th-minute opener. The question of whether the midfielder actually meant to shoot from there or not remains unanswered definitively for now, but whether it was a moment of supreme technique and stunning vision adding up to a moment of sheer brilliance or, as Nathan Jones claimed, a freak goal resulting from a desire to simply put it in the mixer, is irrelevant really – though we absolutely think he did mean it, for the record.
Either one thing or the other was going to be necessary to break a deadlock created by two solid sides putting in excellent defensive performances. Sonny Bradley was particularly immense for the visitors, while at the other end Tom Lees, Jonathan Hogg and Levi Colwill all put in brilliantly composed performances to ensure Luton’s chances were kept to a minimum.
Town were not flawless at the back, but take the (dubious) penalty out of the equation and Town would have recorded their third-lowest expected goals conceded all season, behind only the 1-0 win over Millwall in October and the 2-0 win over a Derby County side who played with ten men for 87 minutes in February.
That’s because even in the rare moments when Luton did break through the lines or the ball was given away in a dangerous area inside the Town half, the team reassembled themselves superbly to ensure those chances came to nothing.
Admittedly, the one really hairy moment outside that spot kick won’t have registered on the xG as James Bree’s cross went unfinished by either Allan Campbell or Elijah Adebayo; but that aside, Luton really had little to go at. Harry Cornick’s speculative effort in the first half, easily saved by Lee Nicholls, was the only shot on target they mustered all game, while just one shot was blocked by an outfielder.
That’s no mean feat against the fourth highest-scoring side in the division; in fact, it’s the lowest combined pair of shots on target (1) and total shots (7) Luton have managed all season, matching their efforts against Fulham in December. The fact they drew that game against the league leaders 1-1 regardless is suggestive of just how clinical Luton have been this season, and just how imperative it was that the hosts limit the opposition’s chances as much as possible.
Carlos Corberan’s side have had more dramatic defensive performances this season: games where their backs have been against the walls and they have come through it regardless by throwing their bodies in front of every shot. The 0-1 win at Nottingham Forest, the goalless draw at Blackburn and the 1-2 win at Fulham all come to mind. But this was even better – Town kept their 17th clean sheet of the season by ensuring they didn’t need last-ditch interventions. A massive victory for clean shorts defending.
2. Pipa helps provide an indirect answer to Huddersfield Town’s left wing issue
We wrote after the Hull game that Huddersfield Town had something of a problem on the left wing with none of their options for that position making a particularly strong claim to the figurative number 11 shirt. But a switch-around first trialled in the FA Cup against Nottingham Forest got a second go-around here and looks like it might provide the answer.
Sorba Thomas was moved across to the right with Danel Sinani playing ahead of Pipa on the right. That Town would be looking to hit balls up the line for the Welshman became apparent right from the very first minute. Harry Toffolo was tasked with a more conservative role than we are used to, and while there’s an argument that perhaps stifles the productive left-back, that was appropriate for the occasion here.
On the other side, Sinani played an unselfish game to drag Luton defenders out wide and create space for the right-back to come inside, as is his preference. In spite of that, though, Pipa was much more positionally disciplined here than he was against Forest, and for perhaps the first time this season showed glimpses of the talented play we fell in love with at the start of last season.
Tino Anjorin was left out of the squad altogether here but we understand there is no new issue with his fitness following his setback over the international break: the Chelsea loanee trained on Monday as he works his way back to fitness. We suspect Corberan has his eye on Anjorin for a place on the left if he is able to start games anytime soon, but for now the solution he struck upon here might be their best option.
3. Huddersfield Town’s squad depth and flexibility came to the fore again
We had also complained a little bit about Corberan’s lack of rotation going into the international break, but he made four well thought-out changes here as well as changing shape once again to all but match Luton up.
That wasn’t so surprising: the head coach had hinted at it in his pre-match press conference that he expected individual battles to be hugely important, with Lewis O’Brien acknowledging that a lot of the week’s training sessions had focused on one-vs-one situations. We’ve talked to death about how Corberan’s ability to pick the right gameplans for the right occasions, coupled with his players’ ability to seamlessly shift between different shapes, have been an enormous part of Town’s successes this season.
You only need to look at those goal and assist combinations here to see how important that ability to make changes either to shape or personnel have been. First, Pipa claimed his second assist of the season in just his third league start of the season as his throw-in teed up Jon Russell for just his second goal of the campaign. Then, Naby Sarr came on for just his second league appearance of 2022 to repeat Russell’s feat, converting from a Thomas set piece. If Thomas had picked out Duane Holmes in the 90th minute rather than shooting, we might have seen a second substitute on the scoresheet.
Pipa to Russell was Town’s 29th unique assist-to-goalscorer combination of the season, only seven of which have occurred more than once – Thomas to Sarr being one of them, having also provided the equaliser at Derby all the way back on the opening day. Town’s last 13 league goals have now come from eight different goalscorers and five different providers.
From the very earliest days of Carlosball at Huddersfield Town, we suspected the whole idea was to get a broad diaspora of combinations and contributors. This season, that promise has paid off big time.
4. Calm Huddersfield Town had the game won from the moment Luton missed their penalty
Stone Cold Steve Austin is very fond of the phrase ‘a cooler head will prevail’, so it was appropriate that Russell’s stunner was followed up by a performance to back that adage up. Adebayo’s miss immediately precipitated a collective loss of composure from the visitors, with Kal Naismith shoving Lewis O’Brien to the floor to spark a pull-apart melee that would have been more at home on a wrestling show.
Town had already been calm and collected up to that point, but that show of ill discipline from the visitors showed Corberan’s side that if they kept that up, they would emerge victorious. Luton’s record for fighting back from losing positions is one of the worst in the division: they’ve now claimed just one victory and five draws from the 18 Championship games in which they have fallen behind.
Conversely, seeing games out from winning positions was a bit of an issue for Town earlier this season. They were able to extend their lead in just three games before the end of January, and dropped points in six of the 11 games in which they took the lead between the beginning of November and end of January.
But Town have had an excellent record on both counts since then. Since the beginning of February, Town have followed up their opening goals with a second against Derby, Fulham, Birmingham, Peterborough, West Brom and now Luton. That late collapse at the Hawthorns is the only time Huddersfield Town have dropped league points in the last eight games in which they have gone ahead.
We’re sure a lot of hard work has gone into managing those match situations, but with so many new faces to this season’s squad (and those who were here from last season so used to losing), we’re sure part of it is also just the benefit of time. Winning every game is not a realistic expectation for any side in this division, but when we talk about sides having a ‘winning habit’, this is exactly the kind of thing we mean. It’s a great trait to have, and should stand them in good stead should they reach the play-offs.
5. Two more wins should be enough for a top six finish
You know by now that 75 points is the mark at which a play-off spot becomes more likely than not going by previous seasons’ tallies, and Town are now just six points away from reaching that watermark. Nice.
The season is far from over yet, but this result means that it would now take a pretty catastrophic run of results for Town not to make it to a top six finish. Since 1993/94, 26 second-tier sides have held a gap of four to six points over seventh place at this stage of the season. Only two – Stan Ternent’s Burnley in 2001/02 and Garry Monk’s Leeds in 2016/17 – have ended the season outside the top six.
That 7.7% chance is more than Corberan will be comfortable with, though, and Town’s job now is to be professional enough to get the job done as quickly as possible, and not to get deterred by any setbacks they might encounter.
We had Friday’s clash with QPR pegged as a six-pointer, but their dreadful form over the past few months has surely all but removed them from the play-off picture now. That means Corberan and his side should be looking for no fewer than three points and the chance to get their play-off place all but sewn up by the end of Easter with a result at Middlesbrough. In reality, things are not likely to be as straightforward…but it still feels a hell of a lot more likely now than it did on Monday morning.