THE VERDICT: FOREST 0 TOWN 2 Worries are not yet over but safety is now close
Hodgkinson still backing Corberan for next season ROWE AND BACUNA CHOP DOWN FOREST AS TOWN EDGING NEARER TO CHAMPIONSHIP SAFETY
HUDDERSFIELD Town chairman Phil Hodkinson has backed under-fire Carlos Corberan with a strong message of support.
In an update sent to supporters, Hodgkinson says the Terriers will build their summer recruitment drive around the type of players who fit the manager’s style in an effort to give the coach the tools he needs to play the style of football he wants.
Before Saturday’s win over Forest, the Terriers had recorded just one victory in their previous 10 games and two wins in 19 matches which had seen them rapidly fall towards the relegation zone - and raised question marks about Corberan.
Hodgkinson has answered those doubts emphatically by making clear the manager is going nowhere and will be backed with new faces in the summer.
Hodgkinson said: “There are reasons behind our current league positions key injuries have really hampered us, for sure - but this is not the time to look for excuses. My trust in Carlos and his coaching team has not wavered.
“I still believe he is a highly talented head coach and the man for us, and his staff - like all of the staff in the entire club - are exceptional. We saw evidence of how we’re aiming to perform during the first half of the season. Like all of us, I am sure he would do some things differently if he had his time again, but the key is always to learn from every experience.
“When the closed season comes, we will do all we can to continue our squad transition and bring in players to suit the style of football he - and the club - wants, but also more importantly ensure that every single new signing fits our identity, our ethos and has the attitude and application that I know every one of you, like me, wants to see.”
While the Terriers chairman talks of new faces and summer additions, Hodgkinson also makes it clear Town are not in a position to spend wildly this summer, with a sensible approach to the transfer window expected. He adds: “We will ensure we do not gamble with the financial security of the club to do so, but that is about balance.
“We will have the squad budget to improve what Carlos has. I know the last three seasons have been very difficult for you, and every Town supporter.
“From the relegation season to the current one, we have not won enough games. Clearly, we have made mistakes along the way. The key is to learn from them and not to repeat them.”
WE can’t quite stop worrying yet, but if this game is anything to go by then Huddersfield Town’s relegation fears will soon be at an end - if they’re not already.
It wasn’t easy to watch to begin with. When you saw that Nottingham Forest had little-tono interest in winning this game and yet the Terriers were still timid, sloppy and unfocused on the ball over the first 20 minutes, you feared the worst. Less lackadaisical opposition would have punished those lapses - as Carlos Corberan’s men experienced against Bournemouth in midweek.
But the flipside of that initial worry was the sense that if Town could calm down and find their feet, the game was there for the taking.
Easier said than done, of course, and there have been several prior occasions this season - Sheffield Wednesday away or home to Wycombe, for instance - where Town have had that same opportunity and not taken it.
Full credit to them, then, for snapping out of their stupor and getting the job done.
Aaron Rowe started the job shortly before the break. The winger had begun the game on the left but moved across to the right as he swapped with Duane Holmes midway through the first half.
That switch of wingers ultimately turned the game Town’s way. Holmes had struggled in the early going but looked much happier with Lewis O’Brien and surprise return Harry Toffolo up the left side.
It suited Rowe, too, and he was alert enough to turn the tables on Forest by seizing on a loose ball, racing through on goal and putting a brilliant bottom-corner finish past Brice Samba.
Town still needed to kill the game off after the break, though, and that was a worry too. They hadn’t scored more than a single goal in any of their last 11 games.
Samba, Christie, Worrall, McKenna, Blackett, Yates, Garner, Knockaert, Krovinovic, Mighten, Grabban. Subs: Yuri Ribeiro, Mbe Soh, Colback, Smith, Freeman, Jenkinson, Cafu, Murray, Taylor.
Thankfully, Juninho Bacuna had perhaps the most Juninho Bacuna performance you will ever see.
The midfielder wasted a couple of promising moves by being much too over-ambitious with his final pass or shot, only to smash an unstoppable effort into the roof of the Forest net from outside the box - a finish you are not going to see out of many other players in this division, let alone the rest of Corberan’s squad.
Forest finally woke up after