Believe it or not, Terriers were perfect Examiner’s Steven Chicken analyses Town’s thumping win over Reading
GOALS from four different goalscorers meant Huddersfield Town cruised past a poor Reading side to claim a brilliant 4-0 win.
Lewis O’Brien, Matty Pearson, Sorba Thomas and Danny Ward came up with the goods in an excellent all-round performance by Carlos Corberan’s side, with Thomas particularly outstanding in two different positions on the right flank.
The Terriers have not claimed a bigger win than this since beating Charlton Athletic 5-0 in January 2016, and a third victory in a row has pushed Town all the way up to fourth in the Championship table.
From the very first minute, Town were everything they had been in the impressive performance against Everton in the Carabao Cup – and more. Threatening, dangerous, creative, solid, confident.
This was a complete 90-minute performance in all areas, and about as close to the perfect home Championship performance as you are ever likely to see.
Town had no passengers to speak of on the pitch, with Lewis O’Brien’s rather ropey first 30 minutes on the ball about as close as they got to a player not doing their part.
Town cannot possibly spend the season getting better and better and better game on game, but their past five outings have told the tale of a side that has been ramping up from a hell of a nadir against Fulham to a truly sensational performance in this game.
Carlos Corberan needed to take a rather fortuitous victory against Preston and gradually introduce new elements to the side’s play, and that is exactly what he has done.
Their xG difference over the past four league games tells you all you need to know: -2.02 against Fulham, -0.16 against Preston, +0.46 against Sheffield United, and now +1.65 against Reading.
It’s genuinely challenging to try and find a way to talk about this game that won’t sound like a teenager who has fallen in love for the first time and won’t shut up about how utterly brilliant their paramour is, but honestly. Just so good.
Even when results were as bad as they were, we recognised that
Town’s lack of squad depth last season really was a necessary evil.
Their finances simply did not allow them to add any more players to a wage bill while they waited for the final few players from their Premier League days (and first summer of recruitment thereafter) to see out their contracts.
Privately, the expectation from the board this time last year was that Town may have to have another year of scrapping it out in the bottom half of the table, but that it would prove worthwhile in the long run. The plan was always to launch the big rebuild this summer, but they were rather fortunate in the end that the calculated gamble did not end in relegation to League One.
After the Preston game we scoffed at Corberan’s insistence that last season and this should be regarded as separate entities. How could we possibly see them that way when the very start of the campaign offered such little evi
Town’s lack of squad depth last season really was a
necessary evil