Huddersfield Town: Pushing for the Play-Offs

Hello everyone and welcome back to my Huddersfield story.

After the euphoria of winning the JPT and parading the trophy around the town it was back to the business of gaining promotion and a visit to Oldham. It seemed we were suffering a bit from our celebrations particularly up front were almost everything we created went wildly high or wide. In the end though a superb individual run by Moguena broke the deadlock in the 65^th minute and his single goal was enough to ensure all three points.

We travelled to the south coast next to face Brighton and we looked a lot more like our usual selves. After twenty minute of searching and probing for an opening Steve Gohouri gave us the lead with a powerful header from a Nowlan free kick. Three minutes later Lee Peltier who has recently returned to the first team in a defensive midfield role played a lovely through ball to Moguena who intelligently flicked it on to Austin to slot home for our second of the game. After the interval Brighton looked a lot more dangerous and Jansson was called upon to redeem our defensive errors. A couple of substitutions and a more controlled tactic brought about Austin’s second of the game as Neilsen’s  fresh legs left Brighton for dead and is well timed pass into the path of Austin required little effort to see it into the back of the net.

Next up was a home game against Notts County and although we totally outplayed the visiting team we were unable to produce any goals in the first half and struggled in the final third of the field. After the break we looked a lot livelier and immediately got on the scoreboard with Sigborsson’s cross finding the head of Kikut. County had a great chance to equalize from the spot but Jansson pulled off a terrific save. Sgiborsson put the game beyond doubt sixteen minutes from time with a well placed shot in the corner of the net.

Following the final whistle we learned that we had secured a play off spot with four games to spare.

After gaining a play off spot I decided to rest a few players for the trip to Rotherham. After a domination opening twenty minutes that saw Robbie Simpson hit the woodwork a series of catastrophic defensive errors enabled Rotherham to secure a 2-0 lead by half time. The embarrassing display continued on well into the second half and were sent packing by the end of the game. What this did tell me for sure is a) who the starting goalkeeper will be and b) who the best central defenders are for when we start the play offs.

Following the very poor performance at Rotherham we had a home game against second place Leicester and so the regulars were brought back in. We fell behind though within two minutes after a free kick cruelly deflected off of Sekour into the back of our net. We fought back immediately and the pressure paid off as from a corner Gohouri’s header hit the bar and into the path of fellow defender Krystian Pearce to tap in. Although we piled on the shots we couldn’t get another goal before the interval. We were well into the second half when Gohouri got himself on the score sheet heading in powerfully from a corner and Sigborsson who came on for Austin killed the game off with his usual placed shot deep into injury time. Over recent weeks we’ve now beaten the top three teams in the table.

Next up was a trip to Brentford and we took the lead inside ten minutes when Jim Goodwin’s well timed through ball found Sigborsson whose first touch was delightful and his second drilled it into the back of the net. Brentford tried to make a game of it but Gohouri was immense in defence and Jansson pulled off a couple of terrific saves. We came out in the second half holding on to a one-nil lead but that soon changed as Kupisz doubled our advantage latching onto a cross ball from Joe Skarz on the left flank. Kupisz got his second twenty minutes from the end following a brilliant one-two pass combination with Moguena which he finished off by firing into the roof of the net and ended a satisfying afternoons work.

The last game of the regular season was finally upon us and a good crowd of over 20,000 showed up at The Galpharm Stadium despite some of the first team missing. Daniel Kearns (AMR) and John Dunleavy (DC) were both drafted in from the reserves and gave a good account of themselves during the 90 minutes. After a quiet first half we scored two in the space of five minutes, the first was hit on the volley by Neilsen supplied by Goodwin and the second was slotted home by Austin from a through ball by Gasmi. After Palace had pulled one back from the spot Gasmi headed in our third following an impressive run and cross from Kearns. We ended the regular season on a high note and now it’s on to the play-offs where we will meet Bristol Rovers in the first leg at The Memorial Ground

Final League Table

So there it is, we made the play-offs which I’m absolutely delighted about and hopefully we can use to our advantage playing the second leg of the semi-final a home and go onto Wembley for the second time this season.

Thanks for reading and wish me luck!