THE VERDICT: TOWN 2 PLYMOUTH 3 Youngsters show they have future at Terriers
TOWN RATED CUP EXIT A DISAPPOINTMENT, BUT TOWN HAVE OTHER PRIORITIES TO FOCUS ON THIS SEASON
Led from the back after being given the captain’s armband. Turned one shot onto the post and blameless for the goals.
GOING out of the FA Cup to lower-league opposition is never nice, but the simple fact is Huddersfield Town have their priorities elsewhere this season.
Carlos Corberan revealed after Saturday’s game against Plymouth at the John Smith’s Stadium that only four of the 11 that started the Terriers’ last five league games had been able to complete a full week’s training in which case it hardly made sense to risk even the four that did.
No fan could reasonably have come into this game expecting Town to field a full-strength side, even if Corberan hadn’t already revealed that Pat Jones, Kieran Phillips, Aaron Rowe and Romoney Crichlow would be in his starting line-up.
The lattermost of them got the Terriers off to a fabulous start with a glancing header from Jones’ well-delivered corner and Rowe found the net with a brilliant left-footed strike to the top corner from just outside the box to restore the lead after Plymouth had pegged them back.
But this side’s understandable callowness was made to show in some of their defensive work. Demeaco Duhaney was the most noticeable, but certainly not the only player who was too sloppy on the ball in his own half and nothing like tight enough to his man in defence - which was especially hard-punished in the build-up to the visitors’ third and decisive goal.
There was also a defensive mix-up on the second, with neither Crichlow nor Josh Austerfield decisive enough about clearing the ball as it ran past them both for Panutche Camara to score.
Having led twice in the first half, it will still be disappointing to many fans not to be in the hat for the fourth round and if Plymouth happen to get a TV-money boon against Manchester United or Liverpool that sense of ‘if only’ will only deepen.
While Town would obviously much rather have won than lost, the result was never the most important thing for them in this game.
They will, instead, point to important minutes in the legs of squad players like Rowe,
M. Cooper, Aimson, Opoku, Watts, Edwards, Camara, Mayor, Grant (Moore, 85), Fornah (Wootton, 85) Jephcott (Telford, 82), Hardie (Nouble, 78). Subs: Canavan, Reeves, McCormick, Ruddy.
Phillips, Jaden Brown, Alex Vallejo and Matty Daly, who have all been in the first team but unable to break into the starting line-up.
Some fans will wonder why there is not a stronger second XI to call upon for games like this, why half of the 16 players used were teenagers and another four were aged 21 or under and suggest that reinforcements are needed from the transfer market to bolster the back-up options.
But the very terminology Corberan uses is instructive of the club’s thoughts on that. Both before and after the game he