Huddersfield Town: September 2009

Hello my friends and welcome to the next installment of my story. We left off last time with Huddersfield somewhat under-performing so lets see what happens this month.

It was time for our JPT clash with Burton and although I’m not that interested in this competition I decided to put out a reasonable team instead of some of the fringe players. Indeed, we needed another check mark in the win column. Within the first 5 minutes things were looking positive as a thunderous free kick by Anthony Pilkington hit the underside of the Burton crossbar and somehow scooted away to safety. It was another 20 minutes of pressure before the goal came with Sandrinho’s defence splitting pass finding Pilkington who’s shot from ten yards almost broke the back of the net. But, try as we might that turned out to be the only goal of the game despite having 25 shots and 6 of them being blocked. We had to play out the last ten minutes of the game with ten men when left back Heffernan was sent off following his second bookable offence but we were never really troubled by being short handed.

The first league game of the month was away to MK Dons and prior to the fixture I managed to entice Fabian Brandy and Everton’s Jose Baxter on short term loans to try and shake things up front. Brandy you are all familiar with but here’s Baxter’s profile

On to the game and it was yet another frustrating afternoon watching the team creating many chances but unable to turn any of them into goals. We pretty much dominated the game in all areas but it was MK Dons who got the only goal of the game shortly after half time when Stefanovic came on as a substitute and was immediately tested in his left back position and failed miserably, easily being beaten by Baldock who went on to score the goal.

Next up was a home game against Brentford and we got off to a flying start when Kabous picked out Brandy who let one fly from 25 yards and that was 1-0 inside the first two minutes of the game. Further expeditions into the Brentford half of the pitch failed to produce the second goal we so desperately needed and the visitors pulled level just after the half following some poor marking in the defence. At half time two players had to be substituted due to injury and following the break the injuries started to pile up which Brentford took full advantage of and found the winning goal six minutes from time.

The following game was a trip to London to face Millwall. The home side poured on the pressure early on and we were on the back foot and unable to get out of our own half. Millwall took a well deserved lead when a simple cross was failed to be cleared by the statue like defence allowing an easy header for Abdou. The second half mirrored the first with Milwall getting two further goals and we finally got on the scoreboard when Rhodes was handed an easy tap in from a Pilkington cross. Morale is now extremely low at the club so it’s going to be very difficult indeed to turn this around.

We were back at The Galpharm Stadium for our next game with fellow strugglers  Stockport County who were one place above us in 19^th position. The game was a very even contest played in an absolute downpour and the only goal of the match was scored by Romain Gasmi who I’d switched to the right flank and he picked up on a lovely placed pass by 17 year old Jose Baxter which Gasmi squeezed into the bottom corner of the net for a valuable three points.

The final game of the month was away to league leaders Walsall who the bookies had down for an easy win over us. However, we got off to a cracking start with Baxter and Simpson linking up well as the starting front two with Baxter setting up Simpson for an early goal after eight minutes. For once we managed to capitalize on going ahead with Simpson returning the favour to Baxter whose neatly placed shot doubled the lead 10 minutes later. Baxter would then get his second on the stroke of halftime in similar fashion with Gasmi being the provider. Walsall never really looked like threatening to pull one back though I was slightly disappointed that we couldn’t produce another goal ourselves but it was the best performance of the season so far and lets hope we can build on this.

Here’s the current league table and I’m still at the wrong end of it!

October Fixtures

So that concludes the September report. Nothing really spectacular though I’m pleased we ended up the month on a high note by beating the League leaders.

Thanks for reading.