Steven Chicken
FOR the second game in a row on Saturday, the Terriers went ahead away from home and looked on course for victory, before ending up blowing their lead.
Against Peterborough United, Huddersfield Town went a goal to the good late on only to concede 10 minutes later, and at Cardiff City Danel Sinani put them ahead early in the first half with his first goal for the club only for Kieffer Moore to score twice in the second half to give the hosts their first win in 11 games.
Town had had several presentable opportunities to go 2-0 up but failed to put them away, leaving them counting the cost of five points dropped in as many days. There is no doubt Town should have killed Cardiff off.
The Welsh side looked understandably low on confidence before getting their equaliser, and we have to admit we laughed out loud at just how badly Moore put a shot off target from a central position after selling Levi Colwill a dummy midway through the second half. He who laughs last, and so on.
Had Town taken any one of several very presentable opportunities to make it 2-0, we are positive that would have been game over – Cardiff simply would not have had the will to hit back.
That failure to capitalise on their best chances has been a constant trend for Town this season.
Keeper Alex Smithies did well to tip a header onto the post from Colwill after the defender steered a superb Sorba Thomas corner towards goal, and there’s not much more Colwill could have done as the ball came at him through a crowd of players so he did not have much time to direct his header.
Danny Ward should have scored a few minutes later, instead hitting the post again after getting through one-on-one with Smithies by outmuscling the much larger Aden Flint.
Recently, Town have also developed a particularly uncanny knack for putting crosses two yards ahead of a would-be finisher’s flailing foot, and did it twice again on Saturday – once as Duane Holmes tried to get onto Sinani’s ball in the first half, and again as Ward was unable to reach Josh Koroma’s cross after the break. Ward’s conversion rate stacks up favourably to other leading Championship strikers and it’s simply a matter of him having fewer shots than other members of the division’s centreforward fraternity.
That in itself tells a story. We have mentioned before that Harry Toffolo is having serious difficulty finding team-mates in shooting positions with his crosses, but he’s far from the only one who has not looked to be aware of what ball was best for the occasion.
Sinani’s goal was just the seventh Town have scored from open play inside the penalty box this season. The others were a second ball from a set-piece as Colwill scored against Sheffield United, plus three against Reading and two against Blackburn. That’s a pretty shocking record.
Counter-intuitively, part of the issue may be an over-emphasis on trying to work shooting opportunities close to goal. Only five sides
The failure to capitalise on their best chances has been a constant trend for Town this season