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10:42 AM 29th January 2025
sports

Double Trouble for Town

Football
Photo: Scott Newby
Photo: Scott Newby
Two home defeats in four days for Huddersfield Town leaves them looking for new answers. On Saturday versus Bolton, Huddersfield Town paid tribute to the one and only, Denis Law, who sadly passed away this month. Law, an icon of the beautiful game, played for Town as a teenager and was fondly remembered by the home crowd with a minutes applause. A true great, and a true gent, and how Town could do with a player of his guile and class right now. RIP Lawman.

Reports on both matches provided by Martin Sykes:

Huddersfield Town 0-1 Bolton Wanderers, 25/01/2025

Town’s unbeaten run, which has been tottering for a while despite a couple of important wins at Wycombe and against Stockport, was ended by a committed Bolton side who bullied their hosts and fully deserved the 3 points.

In theory, Town’s tilt at the automatic promotion places should have been enhanced, if not guaranteed, by the addition of two strikers to finish off all the chances Town make. In practice, the two had to feed on scraps, mostly with their backs to goal and the arrival from yesterday’s opponent seemed to be trying a little too hard against his erstwhile employer.

Bolton looked the most likely team throughout. They played with aggression, pace and desire as if freed from the strictures of their previous manager just days ago, while Town seemed inhibited by the favoured formation and tactics of their current manager.

In the absence of effective wing backs, Town were repeatedly sucked into relying on Tom Lees bringing the ball forward ponderously before making entirely predictable passes to standing targets which stultified any semblance of momentum and this self-imposed handicap persisted throughout.

Lee's back three colleague, Balker, tried to do things differently and was the only bright spot of a very disappointing early afternoon while Pearson’s attempts at longer balls were invariably poor.

Lees and Pearson’s fellow stalwart, Hogg, didn’t play badly but was another brake on progressive football and really should not be in the starting 11 while Hodge, who actually added some dynamism, was available.

It was encouraging to have Sorensen back for half an hour, but nearly every pass to him was inaccurate and hampered his ability to take on Bolton’s left back and the dangerous balls in to the box that we saw earlier in the season failed to materialise.
All the best chances in the game fell to the visitors and Town only avoided a greater margin of defeat late on by a good save by Chapman facing a one on one and a glancing header which went narrowly wide.

For Town, Pearson should perhaps have done better in the first half when a set piece finally found a home head but he met it too early and it skewed well wide.

Bolton set out their stall in the first 10 minutes and saw a penalty appeal turned away in favour of a free kick for a push on Balker, before forcing Chapman into a spectacular save from a header despite the striker being offside, which the Aussie wasn’t to know.

Chapman had a more routine save to make from a shot hit straight at him a little later while the visitors also looked to expose Town’s lack of defensive pace between Lees and Pearson with Adeboyajo shooting narrowly wide as Balker came across to help out.

Town had little in response and Duff was visibly frustrated on the touchline at his charges.

Photo: Scott Newby
Photo: Scott Newby
Rather than make half time changes to try to resolve Town’s lack of threat, none were made with the predictable result of nothing changing, other than the scoreline when Bolton capitalised on some ineffective defensive work with a scrappy goal they deserved.

Substitutions were finally made with Sorensen being greeted by a Bolton player crashing in to him at an aerial challenge with both players booked as the home player understandably reacted.

Hodge provided some forward momentum at times and Marshall was more effective than the very subdued Taylor who he replaced and actually had two shots, one which drifted narrowly if harmlessly wide and one which at last forced a good save.

It was too little, too late, however and the visitors comfortably saw out the home pressure which wasn’t either particularly intense or threatening - indeed, Bolton should have wrapped things up during this period.

Perhaps the epitome of the difference between the two sides on the day was highlighted when Bolton’s Johnson flew in to Pearson on the touchline, got booked and then celebrated his challenge with a fist pump to the travelling support who had loudly backed their team throughout.
It was probably a bad time to play Bolton, but then our previous encounter had been a very good time to play them, and there simply wasn’t enough energy or cohesion in the side to subdue them.

The bench Duff named was easily the strongest of the season, which offers some hope, but it is a shame he didn’t use it effectively enough.

Huddersfield Town 0-1 Birmingham City, 28/01/2025

It is always surprising how quickly a very good unbeaten run becomes an extremely worrying slump, and as Huddersfield Town’s form has dropped off a cliff, even the modest ambition of a playoff place is no longer as secure as previously assumed.

Automatic promotion is, sadly, a mere pipe dream now, as two poor defeats in a row on home soil rather emphatically expose this squad, and arguably the manager, as simply not equipped to challenge at the very top of this distinctly average league.

Birmingham’s slender victory was entirely comfortable for the league leaders, even if it did take an excellent strike to break what we can laughably describe as a deadlock.

Town’s work rate, particularly in the first half, was commendable to a point, as they strained every sinew to maintain very limited control and were far too often troubled by pace and the superior technical ability of their opponents.
There is no doubt that the visitors’ squad has been expensively assembled and their record suggests that there will be a gulf between them and second place by the end of the season, but the game starkly underlined the fact that Town will not be the ones staring upwards towards them.

Once again, Duff’s selections caused some head scratching, with Evans and Kane combined with the willing Hogg.

Hodge had done enough in a brief cameo on Saturday to suggest he could add some desperately needed forward momentum in the absence of the sorely missed Kasumu, but he was left on the bench for too long as Evans and Kane failed to ignite the wing backs so crucial to Duff’s rather one dimensional tactical plan.

At least Roosken and Sorensen are bona fide wing backs, and the former contributed some nice touches in his hour on the pitch, though the ex-Lincoln man failed to deliver much, again, and his defensive frailties are of concern, as they were before his injury.

At the sharp end of the pitch, Town carried little to no threat throughout. With Taylor sidelined, unbelievably yet predictably, with a hamstring injury, the hard working Marshall came in to partner Charles and if anything, the front two lost height as a result.

Only once did the pair see sight of the goal as a nice move down the left saw Roosken find Charles in the area, but the former Bolton man could only head tamely at the keeper.

This represented the only slightly significant threat to the visitors’ goal all evening, unless Marshall entirely miscueing an attempted shot in a good position counts. In tight games, such errors are glaring and the lack of technique very costly.

Photo: Scott Newby
Photo: Scott Newby
Charles’s chance came early in the game as Town started more brightly than in the depressing defeat on Saturday, but the first 7 or 8 minutes were as good as it got and Birmingham suppressed all of Town’s attempts to gain momentum from then on in.

As unsatisfying as the first half was, there was a resilience about the hosts in the face of clearly superior opponents though they had one or two scares down the right as some excellent distribution by Allsop twice caught Spencer out as he was left chasing down Laird, bringing him down on one occasion and not getting near him on the other. Fortunately, nothing came of either the free kick or his inaccurate cross.

Following the Charles header and the two breaks by Laird, neither keeper was troubled and a drab spectacle was rarely lifted from its torpor. Birmingham failed to translate their superior technical ability into genuine threat and Town found little rhythm in and amongst some rushed, panicky defensive work.

Early in the second half, a high quality strike by Anderson which dipped viciously with Chapman flailing, settled the match. It was more than the game deserved, in truth, and the absence of quite basic closing down contributed to the winner, as did some lack of concentration at a throw which gifted easy possession in the lead up.
Nevertheless, it was a high quality strike.

Town looked a little more dynamic following the introduction of Hodge, replacing the ineffective Kane, but it was a low bar and marginal. Koroma, Healey and Radulovic offered little change from the bench and an equaliser never looked likely at any point.

The final stages of the game were marred by a bad looking tackle by Hogg on Iwata, which saw Town’s veteran captain, rather generously, booked and the Japanese midfielder carried off, followed by a nasty elbow by Dykes on Lees which also garnered a yellow, rather than a red card.

Lees’ concussion allowed Town an additional substitute and Balker came on to provide a little more thrust from the back, despite being caught in possession at one point, and his availability and fitness will be crucial in the challenging weeks ahead as he adds some quality to a team otherwise largely bereft.

Duff can, justifiably, point to the ridiculous, possibly unprecedented, injury record of his squad - Taylor became the 26th player sidelined - which undoubtedly impacts consistency, but his midfield trio simply didn’t work, yet again, and the total lack of penetration is seriously worrying, particularly at home where a thin crowd became increasingly impatient at yet another home failure.

That tension was never more evident than when Pearson, rather unwisely, felt it necessary to shush some Kilner Bank critics of a back pass to Chapman. To be fair to him, the run of the ball possibly forced him in to the defensive option, but he really should know better than to react to a crowd who, lest we forget, have had to endure a long recent history of failure and were understandably frustrated at his hopeful punts forward.

The defeat feels pivotal, especially when combined with Saturday’s debacle, and unless there is a quick and convincing upturn in form and results, we could be bemoaning a drift out of the play off places in the not too distant future, particularly with the form of Orient and the resurgence of Bolton.

There is, of course, plenty of time left, yet it is more than a nagging doubt that the club could miss out on the play offs - since Cambridge away, performances have palpably declined with even the one win being far from convincing.

It is hard not to feel for Kevin Nagle, who has had to witness back to back disappointments and is getting scant reward for his commitment. To have to hear that his big January signing has suffered an injury likely to keep him out for a month at best was especially cruel on the owner.

Regrettably, he will need to learn that this club doesn’t do anything the easy way, but playoffs, if we get there, are fun, right?