Burden spread

DANEL Sinani told us it was coming. Reflecting on his first goal for the Terriers against Cardiff before Saturday’s meeting with West Brom, the Luxembourgish said: “When it goes in you feel confident because it’s always good for an offensive player to have an impact on the game – to score goals and make assists.

“That was missing in the last few games and when I scored the goal, a little bit of pressure was gone from my side.

“Now I’m more free in the head. I’ve scored my first goal, but I’ll keep going to score another goal and that’s the mindset now.”

It took just six minutes for him to fulfil his promise, scoring what proved to be the winning goal in an excellent Huddersfield Town performance on Saturday that Carlos Corberan got spot on in every department despite the impediment of having eight players out due to injury or illness.

Having better squad depth this season allows Town to better cover for injuries, even if it apparently takes injuries for Corberan to make those changes.

But the West Brom result and

Sinani’s crucial part in it also help highlight one of the secondary benefits of a stronger squad.

He is the man of the moment right now after his two goals in as many appearances, and that is not an accident. In defending his lack of rotation, Corberan brought up the interesting point that the GPS readout from Sinani’s outing against Cardiff was actually the biggest physical exertion the attacker had made in any game of his career to date.

What we are increasingly learning is that Town do not necessarily need all 11 players to be on absolutely tip-top form at all times. That’s not to say there isn’t a bare minimum standard that needs to be reached, as per Corberan’s goal of having a side that is competitive in every single game, but they only need one or two players at a time to provide that crucial X factor that leads to consistent goals and assists.

Town have already gone through several phases. First Sorba Thomas was the man everything went through. That crossed over with a spell of potent goalscoring form from Matty Pearson. Just before the international break and his current injury, Duane Holmes was emerging