Town can’t have any complaints over Smith sending off
card situation before. With one man fewer, it is harder to defend.
“We had to change it (Hadergjonaj for Puncheon) and until half-time I thought we did it quite well.
“But then there was a diagonal ball and that meant there was much width on the pitch because the opponent is one man more.
“It is hard to defend diagonal balls and, in this moment, we didn’t defend the box as I wanted and they scored and we were 1-0 down.
“The players felt, and we all know, we should have done things better.
“It was not our best game, to be honest. We definitely have to do it better.” Dubravka, Yedlin, Schar, Lascelles, Lejeune, Ritchie (Kenedy, 68), Perez, Hayden, Longstaff, Almiron (Atsu, 81), Rondon (Joselu, 84). Subs: Dummett, Ki, Manquillo, Woodman.
And Siewert admits having to constantly change his side for injuries, illness and suspensions is making his job even more difficult.
“In each game I have had to sort situations because someone was ill, or there was an injury, and that makes it even harder for us because it is not my thinking,” he said.
“We want to go with the same shape and if we have to change it because of illness or injury we have to find solutions and, as Lolo (Depoitre) proved, he tried everything to get his first goal this season. Lossl, Smith, Jorgensen, Schindler, Lowe, Hogg, Bacuna, (Billing, 69), Mooy, Puncheon (Hadergjonaj, 76), Kachunga, Depoitre (Mounie, 76). Subs: Kongolo, Hamer, Ahearne-Grant, Stankovic. JONAS Lossl is never afraid to speak his mind when it comes to Huddersfield Town.
The big Danish goalkeeper was in magnificent man-of-the-match form in the 2-0 defeat by Newcastle.
Even though Lossl was beaten by shots from Salomon Rondon and Ayoze Perez in a five-minute spell at the start of the second half, Town’s misery would have been compounded many times over but for his brilliance between the sticks.
While the woodwork helped him out four times, Lossl made a string of fine saves in addition to two outstanding ones - from Perez in the first half and from Kenedy in the second.
His efforts kept the scoreline from becoming embarrassing.
Lossl took to Twitter to say: “No excuses today. Came here for a result and we didn’t perform. Travelling fans deserve more. Hats off for making the trip, we appreciate it.”
Lossl admits the squad need to take a long, hard look at themselves as the run of woe stretched to 13 top-flight defeats in 14 outings and 20 defeats for the season (out of 27 league games).
“It’s hard right now. I’m very disappointed and angry. There’s a lot of emotions,” Lossl said.
“A couple of things went wrong, but bottom line we didn’t perform well enough to get points from here.
“The red card changed the game, but we should’ve handled it better. We let them have to many chances. We tried to change it at half-time, but we didn’t. Right now, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘why is that?’” HUDDERSFIELD Town captain Tommy Smith deserved his straight red card which changed the match at Newcastle United.
Both Martin Keown and Paul Ince came to that conclusion when assessing the incident on BBC One’s Match of the Day.
Smith was shown a straight red card by Kevin Friend , and will serve a threematch ban starting against Wolves tomorrow, after catching Newcastle’s new signing Miguel Almiron in only the 20th minute at St James’ Park.
Goals by Salomon Rondon and Ayoze Perez gave Newcastle the points and, noting that Jan Siewert had become only the fourth Premier League manager to lose his first four games, host Gary Lineker said the Smith dismissal was the turning point.
Former Arsenal defender Keown agreed.
“Twenty minutes into the game and you do something like this, there are absolutely no complaints,” said Keown.
“He nearly takes the new signing out completely - he is lucky to get up from that.
“It’s wild, it’s reckless, out of control and it gives the referee no option but to send him off.”
Asked if he agreed, Ince commented: “It was a little bit naughty to be fair. He just goes over the top and it’s not like Tommy Smith, I know Tommy Smith and he is not that way inclined.
“The more you see it, the more he is going to go for it.
“It never gave Huddersfield a chance after that, unfortunately.”
Lineker concluded by saying about Town: “Nothing is happening for them this season at all.”