Rovers boss highlights Town flaws
Town have a decision to make: either Corberan is failing, the recruitment is failing, or both (and I personally think it is both). Their league position makes clear that ‘neither’ is not an option for them.
This is the weakest Championship we can remember, and if Town survive, it will largely be because other teams have contrived to be even worse.
Last season’s Championship was especially strong, and the relegation battle was so competitive because most of the teams down towards the bottom were capable of winning on their day.
The three that eventually dropped were a Charlton side beset with off-the-field issues all season, a Wigan team that did phenomenally well but couldn’t fight the gravity of a hefty points deduction, and Hull, who contrived to be even worse in the second half of the season than Town have been this year.
Luton, Stoke, Barnsley and Middlesbrough were all down there too last season, but have all been in mid-table or better all season this time around.
That tells you something about the upward mobility that was possible this season for those savvy enough to take it.
This year, the bottom six consists of three newly-promoted sides who came up in the very worst summer to recruit for a new campaign, two of the most appallingly-run clubs in the country in Sheffield Wednesday and Derby – one of which is playing with a six-point deduction and both of which have at times failed to pay their players this season – and Town.
Injury problems or not, financial control or not, it doesn’t speak very highly of Huddersfield Town that they are keeping such company, especially after the overall positive first half of the season gave them something tangible to build on.
Schofield was quite fit enough to start the 4-3 defeat to Stoke, came on for Ben Hamer at half time at Bournemouth with Town already 3-0 down, and pulled out of the warm-up ill against Norwich.
Our feeling has always been that getting over the issue with crosses is a matter of experience and confidence, and once he’s able to crack that he is going to be a leading Championship goalkeeper.
In our book, that makes him worth sticking with.
Our faith remained even through a pretty poor run of form from mid-February to early March, and he showed why we had such faith in him with a series of assured performances throughout March and into April.
TONY Mowbray’s press conference after his side’s 5-2 win on Saturday afternoon made our ears prick up for a couple of different reasons – as he implicitly described two of the major factors behind the defeated Terriers’ recent decline.
The Blackburn boss was asked after the game whether he was surprised that Huddersfield Town kept trying to play out from the back in spite of Rovers’ repeated success in disrupting that build-up.
Making an admirable attempt to be diplomatic, Mowbray said: “Was I surprised? No, I don’t want to say that.
“My job is to look at the opposition, see how they play, and cut off those lines and make their job difficult.
“That’s what we work on, that’s how we coach our out-of-possession football in this club – we cut out the passing lines of the opposition so the guy on the ball has a decision to make.
“Any football coach worth his salt works his team’s formation, his shape, his organisation – he puts the youth team in against them and they work the patterns of play. They are a very coached team.
“Our job is to disrupt that and to take their passing lines away from them so they have to make a different decision from what they would like to do, and I thought we did that really well.”
Those who have followed Blackburn closely feel they have become too much predictable and easy to play against, and it does not reflect well on Town that they came out second-best.
Ryan Schofield’s early error gifted Blackburn a goal that changed the balance of the game in their favour as it forced the Terriers to go for the game and only opened them up to more and more counter-attacks, but it was nonetheless hard to escape the feeling that Town had failed to do their homework.
Mowbray’s comments in response to a follow-up question were also pertinent to Town, as the Blackburn boss was asked if the highpressing approach his team took against the Terriers suited his side better.
Mowbray said: “Yes, I think so. I think we’ve suffered a bit and some other much bigger clubs that us who play in a similar vein with that type of football have suffered lately.”
That high-pressing style was one of the core tenets of Corberan’s approach in the early season and there were times when they had huge success playing that way.
Players have spoken about how this season has been unlike any other – maybe Town have picked the wrong season to implement his style.