Just no defence for this type of display at the back by Terriers
stepped forward at every opportunity when the side had the ball.
Corberan was slightly defensive about this positional tweak when we asked about it at the post-match press conference, but we genuinely see the logic of it after those two Stoke and Boro goals – identifying a recurrent issue and putting steps in place to fix it is what you expect a good manager to do.
Unfortunately it meant that the impetus for linking central defence with the midfield fell to Sarr and Schindler instead, and while it’s a job that Sarr can perform on his day, it’s fair to say this was very much not his day.
As a result Eiting and especially O’Brien had nobody to play effective one-twos off in the opposition half as they had done with Hogg to such good effect against Millwall, though it was Alex Pritchard instead of Eiting at the Den, and to a lesser extent against Luton. That, in turn, meant that instead of the midfielders passing backwards to then run forwards and get into the box off the return ball, they were repeatedly passing forward to the wingers and then receiving it back with the defence still ahead of them.
That is not going to pose any issues for a back line that has spent the last few years getting coached by Neils Warnock and Harris.
It wasn’t Town’s only issue in attack, of course. On the whole, they didn’t do anything like enough to create chances for Danny Ward who made plenty of good runs off the ball to try and get himself free or anybody else.
The Hogg sweeper role has its merits, but if they are to use it again then the players ahead of him really need to do better to make up for his absence in the opposition half. They didn’t here.
COMING into this season we concluded that though there were plenty of areas where Town’s squad looked quite thin, they had plenty of good options at centre-back. We now question that assessment.
You don’t expect any Championship centre-backs to be free of weaknesses, otherwise they’d be Premier League centre-backs, and even players at the top level make mistakes.
Carlos Corberan also pointed out after the game that if a defender is making mistakes on the ball it could be an indication they are not being given good enough options by the midfielders ahead of them.
However, there have been far too many glaring errors out of Town’s back line this season to ignore, even accounting for the fact they are playing a style where that is a potential risk, and it’s costing them goals and points.
None of Schindler, Sarr or the currently injured Richard Stearman have been entirely convincing at all aspects of what Corberan’s style demands.
Stearman has been by far Town’s most defensively-sound defender, but has had moments on the ball that have cost Town goals and at this stage of his career he lacks the recovery pace needed to deal with quick breaks.
Sarr can be good on the ball, but it’s also apparent he’s going to have days where that fails him - as happened big time for Cardiff’s second goal - and his actual defending can be rash at times.
He is also not as dominant in the air as you would expect, albeit with the caveat that he is usually either marked by or marking the largest opposition player.
We were very enthusiastic about Rarmani Edmonds-Green after the Middlesbrough game, but he got another chance here when he replaced Schindler in the second half and was found wanting as Robert Glatzel made it 3-0, stepping out to cut out a pretty straightforward through ball half a second too late and finding himself caught in no-man’s land as a result before getting brushed past by the imposing and experienced striker.
He’ll learn from that we’re sure, and we still think he has a big future ahead of him, but it was a bit of a reality check after we perhaps got a bit over-giddy over the last few days about his capabilities in the immediate term.
Schindler concerns us most of all. We’re past the point of merely acknowledging with a sad but silent nod that he’s not quite the dominant centreback he once was.
His coming in and out of the side due to a combination of injury issues and form probably hasn’t helped, but he is much too easily pushed around by opponents for a man of his size and switches off to let players get away from him more often than he should.
There were occasions even when the game was goalless when Schindler was lucky to get away with having done exactly that, and he was eventually punished as Moore stole in to open the scoring.
At this level in particular there is always going to be a trade-off between a defender’s ball-playing skills and their defensive capabilities, but on the whole Town’s centre-backs are not offering nearly enough on either front. They need to make a big improvement, and quickly.