CLAYTON ROCKET FIRES TERRIERS
Boss Mark delighted by spirit
ADAM Clayton’s long-distance strike put all those in attendance out of their misery in the 85th minute of a truly dreadful game, but no-one was happier than Terriers boss Mark Robins.
The 25-yarder was enough to give Huddersfield their first win in four games against a Wigan side that had lost just one of their previous nine.
The viewing fare was poor, even taking the wet, blustery weather conditions into account, with the game only coming to life when the Terriers decided just to start taking pot shots in the final 12 minutes.
Oliver Norwood fired the first warning, rattling the bar with a 40-yard free-kick five minutes before Clayton decided the scoreline.
Robins said: “The conditions were so tough, it was so difficult. I don’t think anybody looked like they’d played the game before.
“In terms of the quality of the game it was poor but I thought within the game, the quality that was on show was from us.
“In the second half I think they passed it a little bit better in probably two or three spells but apart from that our shape was OK.
“I think the change in personnel with Danny Ward coming on just thickened things up a little bit and gave us a little bit of strength and an ability come out from the back and mount a sustained challenge.
“The chances that came along, we’ve made the best of in terms of long-distance shooting. The goal that Adam scored in the end was great, and a clean sheet as well after the 5-1 at Leeds.”
Leicester loanee Martyn Waghorn seemed most likely to create an opening for the visitors, but wasted three decent opportunities to bag a debut goal.
Two of those chances came during the best spell of dominance in the game as the Latics forced Huddersfield into counter-attacking football at the start of the second half.
The first flew into the side-netting from Ben Watson’s excellent cross, though as a volley from a difficult angle, that miss was forgivable.
It was harder to wave away the second, however, as Jean Beausejour’s perfect cross into the six-yard box somehow eluded Waghorn.
That seemed to convince Huddersfield that it wasn’t worth holding much truck with this “passing” and “crossing” nonsense.
Instead they began to shoot on sight, and it worked, though there was a short and very entertaining period of calibration.
Norwood put a fierce shot just over from 35 yards on 78 minutes, and nearly caught out Ali Al Habsi from 40 yards two minutes later, only to see it drop into the Omani’s hands off the underside of the bar.
That gave Clayton his cue, and he spanked it into the bottom corner from 25 yards to give Huddersfield the win.
But Wigan boss Uwe Rosler remained upbeat, agreeing with Robins that conditions made the match a difficult one to exert influence over.
He said: “I’m as happy as you can be when you’re losing the game.
“I felt coming to Huddersfield and a team who can cause you big problems with the way they play, we coped with it very well under very difficult circumstances weather-wise.
“We played very good and dominated the game.
“I felt we created more chances, had more possession. We restricted them to only shots from long distance.
“I felt the wrong team won, but when we play more often like that we will win more games away from home.
“The only thing that I’m not happy about is that we did not score goals, and that is part of our game that we need to work on.”