TERRIERS PAY FOR ABSENCE OF BITE
Ruthless Lilywhites show way
CARLOS Corberan blamed the lack of a cutting edge as struggling Huddersfield slipped further into danger with defeat at Preston.
Brad Potts edged the hosts ahead midway through the first half before Ched Evans put them in the driving seat, despite being second best.
Scott Sinclair made the points safe with ten minutes to go with an empathic firsttime finish, with the Terriers now losing four of their last five games.
“We did not get the result in the moment when we were controlling the game,” said head coach Corberan.
“We created chances in the first 20 minutes and did not take them. After that we continued in the same way but we let them score.
“Football is not about how many chances you create, it is about how many chances you take.
“We did not make the most of those chances.”
The Terriers will be left wondering how they got nothing from the game.
The Yorkshiremen turned in a dominant first-half display and were left frustrated by keeper Daniel Iversen on several occasions.
But Town’s spirits dropped after falling behind, allowing Preston to take charge after the break.
Isaac Mbenza scuffed a shot straight at Iversen after four minutes as the visitors started brightest.
Alan Browne blazed over from distance as the hosts tried to get into the game.
Huddersfield had strong shouts for a penalty waved away when Fraizer Campbell went down under a challenge from Andrew Hughes after 18 minutes.
But they were hit with a big sucker-punch when Potts scored with a half-volley after Ryan Schofield had initially saved from Sinclair.
Mbenza had a 25-yard free-kick palmed away from Iversen after 28 minutes, before Anthony Gordon curled over eight minutes later.
Juninho Bacuna failed to get hold of a shot from distance after the ball dropped kindly just before the break.
Huddersfield switched to a 4-4-2 formation after Kieran Phillips replaced Duane Holmes in the 55th minute.
Potts was inches away from a second goal when he rattled the bar with a dipping shot.
He then shot weakly at Schofield, but the good spell of pressure paid off when Evans slotted home after Browne’s perfect first-time pass picked him out.
Preston added another on 80 minutes when Sinclair hammered home after a flowing move involving Evans and Tom Barkhuizen opened up the visitors.
Iversen tipped over a Bacuna effort after 83 minutes as the visitors looked for a consolation goal that never came.
Preston boss Alex Neil said: “We didn’t start the game well and gave them too much time on the ball.
“We got ourselves ahead which we don’t normally do. That is something we have spoken about.
“The lads were very strong in the second half. It is a case of taking your chances, we did that and it made the difference. You’ve got to be clinical.”
BIRMINGHAM used the anniversary of one of the best day’s in the club’s history to launch their relegation fight.
Blues shocked the country 10 years ago by beating hot favourites Arsenal in the Carling Cup final, to win their first major trophy in nearly 50 years.
The downside of that is that Birmingham were relegated from the Premier League a few months later and now look like dropping into League One.
But Croatian Alen Halilovic came on as a substitute and cracked an 85th minute winner that gives the Blues a fighting chance of beating the Championship drop.
He clinched Birmingham’s first home win in a dreadful four months.
Halilovic has Barcelona and Milan on a lengthy CV, but he won’t have seen anything like Blues’ problems at St Andrew’s.
This was only their third home victory going back 13 months, but Halilovic’s first goal for the club he joined as a free agent took Blues five points clear of the relegation zone.
The hosts turned the game around after going behind to a Charlie Austin goal just before half time.
Kristian Pedersen equalised after 82 minutes with his first goal for over a year and Birmingham boss Aitor Karanka admitted he felt his side’s winless run at home would continue.
“When Queen’s Park Rangers scored in the 44th minute I thought ‘Here we go again’,” he said.
Like many times before this season we had played well but then mistakes cost us a goal.
“But we came back, we won, and we won at home. They are all significant and hopefully this is the turning point.”
Birmingham had lost five of their previous eight games and were on the verge of serious problems until Pedersen headed in from Marc Roberts’ cross and then Halilovic came up with his belter from outside the penalty box.
Karanka had a behind closed doors meeting with
Halilovic on Thursday to get the best out of him.
“I told him he couldn’t blame the managers of his other clubs, he had to blame himself,” the Blues boss said.
“If he is not performing as well as he can, and if he is not in a better league or better club, it is his fault, it is not the manager’s fault.
“He told me I was right and he showed me he can do it.”
Birmingham dominated until Austin got his fourth goal in nine games on loan from West Brom.
Todd Kane swung over a cross that Austin tapped in.
Stefan Johansen should have finished it four minutes into the second half when he took Chris Willock’s cross and put his shot wildly over.
“We should have taken that chance and then we are in control,” said boss Mark Warburton of QPR’s first defeat in six.
“You saw balls being lumped forward because it was so hard for players to make good decisions.
“The pitch is dry, rutted and it’s a really difficult playing surface for good players. It was very challenging.
“I didn’t threatened until the last 10 minutes.”
THIS time last year, Daniel Barden wouldn’t have dreamed of playing for Norwich City in the Championship Even now, the thought of his debut, as a half-time substitute for the injured Michael McGovern against QPR in December, draws an incredulous laugh.
“If you’d told me that in August… no way,” says the 20-year-old, who spent last season on loan at Bury Town in the Isthmian League.
“Was I nervous? Yeah, of course. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But when you’re chucked in like that, you don’t have time to think. You just play.
“And everyone was great. Tim
Krul came down from the directors’ box and pulled me aside. He said ‘Keep it simple, don’t complicate things, you’re good enough’. For him to do that, even if it was just 20 seconds, shows the type of character he is.
“As we went out, Grant Hanley said to me ‘Don’t worry - you’re here for a reason’. In the end, I enjoyed it so much.”
Barden’s unexpected bow was a feather in the cap of Ed Wootten, the Norwich goalkeeping coach who ten years ago was working four jobs to make ends meet.
“I was all over the place,” laughs the 37-year-old. “Football in the community, goalkeeping coaching. At one point, I trained to be a London taxi driver.
“Some days, I’d do a primary school session first thing, then watch the first-team train and take an academy session, play for my Non-League team in the evening and drive a taxi at night. It was crazy.”
Wootten’s focus is sharpening the skills of Krul and McGovern, but he harbours a dream of one day seeing three homegrown keepers in the Norwich squad.
Barden is at the vanguard of those hopes, alongside Scot Archie Mair who is currently on loan at National League side King’s Lynn Town.
“From Under-18s up, we’ve got ten keepers here,” he says. “And none of them would be in the building if we didn’t believe he could be a professional in the Football League.
“Not everyone will play for the Norwich City first team. But they can all have a career. Dan has stepped into the team and shown he is of Championship quality. Archie will have 40 games with King’s Lynn and can hopefully step into the EFL.
“There’s no reason why we can’t have a No.1, No.2 and No.3 keeper all our own, and I’ve got full faith that can happen.”
Faith, though, can only take anyone so far. What the young keepers need is minutes - and that is where Neil Adams comes in.
Adams played over 200 games for Norwich and managed the club for eight months until January 2015. For the last five years he has worked as loans manager, organising and monitoring outbound loan players from first-team to academy level.
“When I started, nobody did this job at Norwich,” explains the 55-yearold,
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who played in the top flight with Everton, Oldham and the Canaries before retiring in 2001.
“Someone would go on loan. The manager at the time would pick the phone up once every fortnight, say ‘How’s it going? OK, bye’. It wasn’t good enough.”
Imperative
Until relatively recently, most elite clubs operated along similar lines. Now, Adams estimates that every Premier League club and 50 per cent of Championship sides employ a loan manager.
“Some clubs don’t believe in loans, and that’s fair enough,” he says. “But if you do - and we certainly do - then it’s imperative.”
That belief is understandable. During Adams’ five years in charge, Todd Cantwell, Ben Godfrey, James Maddison and the Murphy twins Josh
and Jacob - have all benefited from stints away from Carrow Road. Cantwell is currently in the first-team, whilst the others have earned the club a combined £62m in transfer fees.
Getting them out in the first place can be tough, however, especially goalkeepers like Barden and Mair.
“It’s easy with seniors,” says Adams. “If we made Teemu Pukki available, we’d have 200 calls within the hour. But the younger you are, the harder it gets - and the hardest one of all to place is a young keeper.
“Most managers will take a chance on a 19-year-old striker. If he misses an easy chance, it’s no big deal. If a keeper makes a mistake, you might lose your job.
“That’s why the conversations we have with chief execs, sporting directors and, particularly, coaches are so important. You need to gauge opinion, ask a lot of questions. Is he going to play straight away? If not, how many keepers is he up against?
“If we’re getting inconclusive answers or it’s ‘Well, we’ve got a lot of games, I’m sure he’ll get a chance’, then maybe we need to look lower down. What we’re looking for is ‘We’ve got an injury to our keeper, we need someone to go straight in and play’.
Incentives
League
“What we’d never do is tell clubs he has to play or put anything in a contract. One, because FIFA have changed the rules to prevent incentives that allow third parties - ie, us - to influence team selection.
“Two, because a manager will pick his best team regardless of the terms. If you said to a manager ‘If you don’t pay this lad it’ll cost you £500 but you’ll
win the game’, he’d probably pay you out of his own pocket.
“Finally - and most importantly - we don’t think that’s right. We want our lads to fight for a place, merit a place, and if they don’t they deserve to be dropped. That’s a big part of the education.”
What that generally means is that keepers need to begin their journey a lot further down the pyramid, much like Barden’s loan at Step 4 Bury Town.
“People go ‘What, Step 4?’” says Adams. “But if a player is ready for first-team football - at any level - we believe that is better than staying in the Under-23s. Non-League, especially, can be so beneficial.
“We all know academy football is played on the ground. Keep the ball, pass, pass, pass. A striker who likes it into feet.
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uddenly, you’re up against two big rs. There’s a 35-year-old trying to his elbow in your face. The ball nstantly in the air. I speak to our g lads after a game and they can’t ve what they’re seeing. But that nutes has probably taught more than a season’s h of academy games. ecause it’s real, and monstrates just how ess and determined need to be, even to ed as a semi-pro. or bad, those loans o important.” ose thoughts are d by Barden and he physicality is defithe biggest thing you e,” says Mair. “That he experience of ayers.”
Barden adds: “There’s no easing-in period. You need to take charge, to show some personality, and fans will notice if you don’t. There were maybe only 400 people at Bury Town, but if you weren’t being decisive in what you were doing, they’d batter you.”
At the higher levels, the challenge is altogether different with goalkeepers now widely expected to act as sweepers.
As recent games neatly illustrate, it is strategy with a high risk/ reward ratio; Ederson, the Manchester City keeper, claimed an assist in the 3-0 win over Spurs, whilst the errant passing of Liverpool’s Allison gifted City two goals in a 4-1 defeat.
“The way we play adds a lot of stress to the position,” says Wootten. “We ask our keepers to find passes. A lot of our training will be around quality of first touch awareness, whether to play to your back four or midfield. Video or analysis work, when it’s right to clear your lines.
Challenging
“If you’ve got a keeper whose only job in possession is to boot the ball as far as he can, that’s a whole side of the game he doesn’t need to think about.
“It’s challenging, and the psychology is massive. It’s about having a healthy mindset, accepting errors as an occupational hazard and not getting too repressed by fear. So when it does go wrong - and it will - you stay calm.
“Above all though, the first job will always be keeping the ball out of the net. Fortunately we have a manager in Daniel Farke who understands the
Sunday, February 21, 2021 position, and he knows that we don’t want to take unnecessary risks. If we need to clear our lines, we clear our lines.”
If, as seems increasingly likely, Norwich return to the Premier League next season, Barden and Mair are likely to fall down the pecking order. Loans in the EFL are already being mooted. Yet the pair are sanguine about the future.
“When you look at the career paths of Aaron Ramsdale, Dean Henderson, Jordan Pickford, they’ve all gone out to League One, League Two and played like 100 games across a lot of years,” says Mair. “Now, they’re all in the Premier League.”
Barden adds: “With keepers, there’s no rush to be in the Prem by 21, 22. Probably more than any position, it’s about experience. You’ve got to win and lose, make mistakes, learn your trade at different levels. We’ll get there.”