Town miss from spot in battling draw with City

HUDDERSFIELD Town kept their first clean sheet since December 19 as they battled to a well-earned point against visiting Cardiff City – but were left to regret yet another missed penalty after Yaya Sanogo missed the target from 12 yards.

Corberan made three changes from the side that drew against Birmingham City in midweek, bringing in Richard Keogh for Richard Stearman, Aaron Rowe for Isaac Mbenza and – on his full Terriers debut – Sanogo for Duane Holmes.

That meant Town shifted to what can be best described as a 3-5-2, though Fraizer Campbell was dropping so deep as to effectively become an extra midfielder.

That fluid shape caused Cardiff some issues in the middle, with

Lewis O’Brien and Juninho Bacuna both benefitting from extra time and space on the ball as a result.

Bacuna especially enjoyed a bright start to the game playing off target man Sanogo, but despite playing a key part in a couple of promising moves Town were unable to create any clear-cut chances.

An attempt to get the ball through to former Cardiff man Campbell inside the box was cut out at the last moment, and a well-worked exchange with Sanogo almost released Pipa too, but again Town’s final ball was thwarted by a good Cardiff back line.

The visitors, for their part, looked a big threat from set pieces as expected – no side in the division has scored more headed goals than them, and 6’5” centre-forward Kieffer Moore came into the game in incredible form, having scored eight goals in his past ten games.

But despite looking frail from set pieces recently Town stood up to Cardiff well.

Towering defender Aden

Flint hit the bar with a delivery from deep on 32 minutes but the offside flag was already up – correctly, replays showed, but extremely narrowly.

Ryan Schofield made a decent save from another Cardiff effort four minutes before the break, diving to his right to save a swerving Will Vaulks effort.

That concluded the action for a first half that was low on goalmouth incident but at least entertainingly competitive to a neutral eye.

The second half started incredibly scrappily, though, with neither side creating much of not for 28 minutes before Aaron Rowe was fouled in the box to give Town the chance to score from the penalty spot. Unfortunately Sanogo became the third Terriers player this season to step up to take a penalty only to fail to find the target, putting his effort just wide of the bottom corner.

To Town’s credit they kept going and O’Brien’s brilliant pass released Pipa to go clean through on goal from the left flank.

But just as he thought his dinked effort over Dillon Phillips was destined for the net he saw the keeper’s trailing hand fly out and push it behind for a corner.

Cardiff put on the pressure late on to try and catch Town from set pieces, but they rode out the pressure and claimed a point they would definitely have taken before the game.

But which was ultimately disappointing in light of those late missed chances to turn it into an unlikely victory against the highflying Bluebirds.