OH MY JOSH! Toothless Terriers stunned by Brownhill strike
JOSH BROWNHILL piled more pressure on Huddersfield boss David Wagner with a brilliant second-half winner.
The Bristol City midfielder (right) jinked past two defenders into the penalty area and fired a fierce shot past Ben Hamer from a narrow angle.
It was enough to settle a closelyfought tie and for Wagner it was an all too familiar tale as his Premier League basement boys squandered several clear chances as they slumped to a ninth successive defeat.
That was something the Terriers c ou l d i l l - a f f ord against in-form Championship opponents.
It might have been even worse for Wagner’s men had Hamer not denied Brownhill a second goal with a fine save in the closing minutes.
A scrappy first half was summed up by two extraordinary errors by Huddersfield players in quick succession.
First Jason Puncheon, on his debut after a loan move from Crystal Palace, directed a short corner straight at City’s Jamie Paterson, who launched a quick break that ended with Famara Diedhiou volleying well wide.
From the resulting goal kick, Hamer, making his first appearance since
August, mishit the ball straight out for a corner in trying to play it square to his full-back.
The first scoring effort of note came from City after
36 minutes when Callum
O’ D o w d a’s flicked header from a Jack
Hunt cross was tipped onto the crossbar by Hamer. Huddersfield had plenty of the ball without threatening and the home side went close again on 41 minutes when Paterson’s fierce 25-yard shot flashed just over.
When the visitors did create a chance a stretching Laurent Depoitre could only shoot wide from Erik Durn’s cross.
Wagner made two changes at the break, sending on Steve Mounie and Alex Pritchard for Depoitre and Juninho Bacuna.
Still the Terriers looked toothless as Pritchard fired well wide from distance on 52 minutes. And that proved the case again when they carved out two clear chances.
First Chris Lowe burst into the box only to shoot wide, before Jonathan Hogg was offtarget with time and space to pick his spot.
Mounie thought he had broken t he deadlock in the 65th minute when beating advancing goalkeeper Niki Maenpaa to the ball and knocking it past him, only for Bailey Wright to get back and clear.
City head coach Lee Johnson looked to stem the flow of pressure by sending on Tomas Kalas and Matty Taylor for Eliasson and Paterson.
Brownhill’s goal came against the run of play, but Huddersfield only had themselves to blame. They poured forward at the end in search on an equaliser, but when substitute Isaac Mbenza curled a shot wide in injury time City knew they were through to round four.