Huddersfield Town: January 2010

Hello friends and welcome to a new year with Huddersfield. My job is still on the line so let’s see what happens.

The first game of the New Year was at home to Wigan in the FA Cup Third Round and in front of 25,000; our biggest attendance of the season. The first half we battled really hard to create an opportunity but Wigan proved too strong and too organized and forcefully dealt with any threat. Although we didn’t make the game easy for them we finally succumbed to the pace of Rodallega and N’Zogbia whose individual runs left our tiring defence for dead and resulted in two well deserved goals. I was proud of our efforts but our cup run had come to an end.

We stayed at home for the first league game of 2010 which was against Bristol Rovers who had been flirting with a play off spot. We got off to a fantastic start with Sekour and Collins (who’d hardly played this year) in the box to box role set up Gasmi for a goal inside thirty seconds…wow! For all our possession and effort we couldn’t add to the tally before halftime and had to wait until sixty minutes in when Robinson caught Bristol on the break and ran almost seventy yards with Sekour at his side and unselfishly passed to Sekour to make it 2-0. Jordan Rhodes managed to get in on the act latching on to a poor Bristol clearance and his strike flew into the net through a crowded penalty area for the third goal and the three points. It was by far our best performance of the season.

Following the game I received the news that Chairman Dean Hoyle had accepted an offer from Newcastle for our best winger Anthony Pilkington.

Next up was a trip south to play Southampton. The first half was a very even contest with both sides creating chances at either end of the park. Jordan Rhodes gave us the lead after 30 minutes following a shot by Robbie Simpson that was parried by the Southampton keeper into the path of Rhodes for an easy tap in. The home side stepped up a gear and found the equalizer they were looking for a minute before the interval. Although our keeper was the busiest of the two in the second half victory could have gone either way but I was happy to secure a point against a really good team.

The following game was a home match against promotion candidates Southend. The visitors laid siege to our goal right from the kick off and were rewarded for their tenacity inside the first three minutes. Theo Robinson had an excellent chance of squaring up the game straight away but lost his confidence in a one on one situation and shot straight at the keeper. Robinson again would have our only other good effort but his shot hit the post after Sekour had set him up with a lovely through ball. Poor marking and failure to close down allowed Southend their second goal of the game and they never looked like losing following that.

Up next was the first leg of the Northern JPT Final and we had to travel to the east coast to face Grimsby. We absolutely dominated the game and should have won by a lot more but nonetheless a 3-1 victory was very satisfying. Jordan Rhodes was in fine form giving us the lead with a lovely header off a Gasmi cross and Robinson doubled our advantage with Sekour the provider as usual. Rhodes would get his second of the game right at the end as Grimsby threw everyone forward in hopes to add to their earlier goal but we caught them on the break to score our third. Unfortunately victory came at a price as both Marc Muniesa and Youcek Sekour both sustained injuires that will leave them out of the team for at least two months.

We went from the north east to the south east next to face Brighton who were hovering in a play off spot. Before the game I brought in two short term signings; Emmanuel-Thomas from  Arsenal and young Liverpool defender  Papadopoulos to cover off the injuries.

Onto the game itself and we took the lead after 22 minutes with the speed and skill of Gasmi proving too much for the Brighton right back and his cross was met perfectly by the head of Robinson. Our second goal was almost identical except that Robinson controlled the cross and squared it to the incoming Pilkington to fire into the corner of the net. Pilkington is still yet to go to Newcastle. Brighton never provided any real threat to our goal but it took us all of the second half to add another with Pilkington’s cross landing at the feet of an unmarked Simpson who neatly passed the ball into the net. It was a good all round team performance.

Our final game of the month was also away from home at Yeovil. We seem to have been all over the country for our last three games. A good aggressive start by an unchanged starting eleven saw us take the lead after through Theo Robinson who was first to a delicate probing ball into the box from Sandrinho. Yeovil though immediately hit back within three minutes scoring from a set piece as I was unable to change out defender Krystian Pearce who got injured moments before. His injury actually turned out to be nothing at all. Anthony Pilkington whose transfer to Newcastle seems to be all but dead added a second when Gasmi’s cross hit the post and fell at his feet for the easiest goal he’ll ever score. Two minutes later a Pilkington cross found the head of Rhodes and it was 3-1 after twenty one minutes. Robinson got his second of the game when Rhodes picked up the ball in his own half and neatly passed to Robinson who sprinted from the half way line and kept his cool to fire home our fourth goal. The second half was far less exciting though we had a couple of good chances but this was a great way to end the month with three wins in a row.

Even though we did better in the league it didn’t do us any favors in terms of our league position though at least we are away from the relegation zone.

Next months fixtures…

So that’s it for this month and even though it was much better my job is still in jeopardy and most of the senior players are complaining about the lack of squad harmony. Hopefully I can lead them to the JPT Final and that will be a moral boost.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend wherever you are in the world.