It’s game on now, says Huddersfield chief
Huddersfield Town boss David Wagner declared it “game on” after his side were held to a goalless draw by Sheffield Wednesday in their Sky Bet Championship playoff semi-final first leg.
The Terriers, who finished the regular season in fifth, bossed the entire 90 minutes at the John Smith’s Stadium yesterday.
But they were unable to find an elusive goal, with Izzy Brown clipping the crossbar in the first half and Nahki Wells twice testing Keiren Westwood in the Wednesday net.
They now head to Hillsborough for the return leg on Wednesday and Wagner is insisting it was not an opportunity missed in front of their own fans.
“I think it is game on,” the German said. “We will not play them off the park, we played Sheffield Wednesday, no one should forget it.
“We dominated and we had chances, but it is game on.
“I am satisfied with the performance of course, I wished we had a goal and a victory but it isn’t the case. We take the 0-0.
“The pressure has been on them since they have got in the play-offs. We are the underdogs, today performance-wise we didn’t see that. It is game on, it’s 0-0 at half-time.
“We did everything today to play an open game.”
It was a classic containing away performance from the Owls, who failed to muster a shot on target and showed little ambition to win the game.
But the stalemate means they return to their own patch favourites to reach the Wembley final for a second successive year, not that boss Carlos Carvalhal sees it that way.
The Portuguese does admit, though, that the result was a “positive” one.
“It is a positive result, if you go away in the play-off semi-final and you return to play the home game at 0-0, it is very, very positive,” he said.
“There are two words that we said pre-match and that was focus and efficiency.
“We came here to try and keep the second game alive and we have done that. We now play at home in front of our fans as a final.
“We are not favourites in this competition. Every team has 25 per cent chance.
“There have been two draws so every team still has 25 per cent.
“The value of all four teams are similar.
“We had a similar game to this here in the season, we tried to score but we must give credit to Huddersfield, they blocked our transition.
“At the end of the day, the most important thing is the semi-final is open, we must now play at Hillsborough and we have good expectations.”
The other semi-final was also drawn, with Fulham’s TomCairneylevellingJordan Obita’s Reading opener in the first leg at Craven Cottage.
Reading had exSunderland defender Paul McShane sent off late on.
The return match is tomorrow night.