Elphick’s not to blame for error, says Cowley
DANNY Cowley has weighed in to make sure Huddersfield Town take collective responsibility for any mistakes which scar their Championship progress.
As they head into tonight’s match against Middlesbrough at the John Smith’s Stadium, the Terriers manager has moved to defend Tommy Elphick over the passing error which gifted Blackburn Rovers a route back into Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Ewood Park.
The 32-year-old defender misplaced an attempted cross-field pass to colleague Christopher Schindler and, after a few Blackburn passes, debutant Lewis Holtby was able to equaliser for Tony Mowbray’s side.
Cowley says he and the team have moved on and stressed it’s never the fault of just one person.
“Mistakes happen and the two centre halves, in the whole game, I think made 80 passes each,” said Cowley, whose side have picked up eight points from the last 12 available. “Between the pair of them they misplaced only one pass.
“It does happen, it will happen, we understand that, and with the way we want to play with the players we have available to us, we have to be brave and we have to make sure we are making the right options for the player on the ball.
“We have to make sure the patterns ahead of the ball are always good.
“It’s not always the fault of the person who gives the ball away – it’s the options they have available to them, or the lack of options they have available to them.
“I’ve played in possession-based teams where if you lose the ball the manager would scream and shout at you making mistakes, but all that does is have a big affect on the bravery of the players in possession.
“We don’t want that. We don’t want to make mistakes, obviously, but we have to accept that we do.
“For us it’s always about the response. They are human beings. They will make technical errors at times, they will make judgment errors at times and the key is always to learn and not to make the same mistake twice.
“It’s about the response, and we were pleased with the way we responded in the second half at Blackburn.”
Elphick held his head in his hands after the Blackburn goal but recovered to play solidly in the second half, and Cowley says he is ready to go again in the Middlesbrough game.
Cowley added: “Tommy is a big boy, he has played an awful lot of football and he has had a brilliant career.
“He will have made mistakes before and he will make mistakes again but, like I have said, it’s not always the player on the ball who is actually at fault – sometimes it’s the movement ahead of him which forces the mistake.
“So we always see it as a team thing.
“I listen to interviews by managers all the time and it always annoys me when they talk about individual errors. It’s like they are trying to distance themselves from that moment and their teams defeat.
“I just think it’s weak management if I’m honest because you, as manager pick the team and it comes back to you one way or another.
“I would just much rather win together and lose together. I don’t feel as manager I can take any part of the praise if I am not willing to take part of the pain when it doesn’t go well.
“It’s always collective.
“We are trying to play in the certain way, which we think is the best way of playing with this group of players. That’s what you have to do. You are trying to set up your players for success.
“We are learning about them every day and we are trying to find the very best way of setting them up for success.
“We are going to have to be brave in our hearts, we are going to be brave from the build, we are going to have to be patient at times in trying to draw teams out and then get our attacking players in space in one versus one moments.
“So it’s important we all understand how we are trying to play.”