You see that's the problem, had anyone said to you before Saturday that we'd get a point at Bury and move a point closer to Sheffield United, then most of you would be fairly happy, right? Well no, none of us are happy, not even slightly happy, because yet again this team of ours have squandered a lead and this time it was a 3 goal lead. It's very difficult for us to try and make sense of what happened on Saturday, and for me to do so I'm going to break this down into sections, so I don't go off on a tangent. So here it goes;
FIRST HALF
Over 200 walkers descended on Gigg Lane from Huddersfield, a truly epic achievement to be part of an away crowd of 3,270, outnumbering the home fans by around 500. A good sign I thought, the boys to be roared on by a vociferous away following and surely one that would intimidate the opposition. Well that's certainly what it looked like after 21 minutes when Sean Morrison handed Town the lead in scrappy fashion marking the beginning of a crazy 8 minutes that would see us emerge with a three goal lead. Who got the other two goals? Well who else? Jordan Rhodes, on the day that Robin Van Persie proved to be invaluable to Arsenal, Rhodes did the same for us. The way that he seems to interject some of the truly atrocious football in this league with moments of class and genius is remarkable. His first goal was a joy, a perfect header steered into the far corner beyond the reach of the keeper, and his second was an example of a diamond in the rough. Grotesque defending, and frenetic attacking culminating in a delicious finish from the leagues most potent player. For the past two seasons we have always known he's capable of grabbing a goal or two, equally capable of missing a few chances, but I never saw him as something special. This season however, he's scored all sorts of goals, from impossible angles, impossible situations and a few easy ones too, but he really has shown his class, and keeping hold of him might also prove to be impossible. But there we stood, on the precipice of another Wycombe, or Stockport. As I tweeted at 2-0, I wouldn't be comfortable until we got a third, and I was fairly comfortable for around 3 minutes, when Steven Schumacher clawed one back for the shakers. Now this wasn't a moment to worry, I thought that'll simply be a blot on the result, a convenient part that we'll disregard when we're basking in the glory of a 7-1 victory. Well the rest of the half passed with barely anything of note, we had conceded and this had perhaps dampened our spirits going into half-time, but it seemed everything would be fine.
SECOND HALF
The worry at the beginning of the second half was that we were in an all too familiar position, we had a two goal lead to hang on and plenty of time to mess things up. However, I was very confident that after the events of midweek that we would have learnt, and would have been much better equipped this time to hold off such a disaster. Oh, and Bury are shit. So as the game meandered for the next 20 minutes or so, with not much occurring other than the occasional half-chance, I rubbed my hands with glee, we seemed to be killing the game off. Then it happened, Town began to self-abuse, we were left bamboozled down the flanks by a very poor attempt at skills by a Bury player, (the likes of which you might see down any given park in the country) the cross came in and a rather tame effort evaded Smithies and found its way into the back of our goal. This on the 70th minute allowed plenty of time for Town to implode, and so they did, however this time in even more spectacular fashion than you might think. After clawing the game back to 3-2 you'd think that Bury would have been right on it, and followed up that goal with another quick one, setting the scene for a dramatic late winner. This did not happen, and Town managed to weather the worst of the storm, and even had a very good chance themselves to score another, and thus kill the game. However, greed, arrogance or stupidity meant that we did not take advantage of this. So Danny Ward limped off with cramp, and we began to fall further and further back, before conceding once again to even things up at 3-3. The equaliser for me epitomizes Huddersfield Town this season, just when we needed to be strong, organised and think with our heads, we let someone loose at the back post and he tucked one away. This left even a little time for Bury to snatch an unthinkable winner, fortunately they didn't although I think it would have been befitting given our performance in the second half. The referee blew his whistle, Bury celebrated like they'd won the FA Cup droves of Huddersfield fans left in stunned silence, and a few misguided souls began to launch abuse at Danny Hoyle and Joe Grayson on twitter, both the sons of Dean Hoyle and Simon Grayson respectively.
So that's how it finished, a week that started with such high hopes and two games that started with similarly high hopes have finished with a feeling of suicidal disbelief. The manager came out after the defeat and said that he has now seen the very best and the very worst of Huddersfield Town, and I for one would be tempted to agree with him, however I've seen us play a lot worse in the past! The reaction to this week is the most crucial for us, as results go we've probably had two of the most demoralizing possible in a short space of time, and how we react psychologically is very important. You often hear managers talking about mental strength in football nowadays, and it is clear from the past week and possibly even the past few seasons that this team really does lack it. When our backs are up against the wall, when all things are conspiring against us and when the stakes are high, we have rarely come out on top. For evidence of this all you need to look at is Millwall away in the play-offs, Peterborough in the final last year, and the string of draws that we have managed after been in control of matches. The current manager is not at fault in my opinion, he cannot help that his players lack mental strength and a determination to succeed, he can only try and fix this, and the loan market is the only way I think he can this season.
On a recent podcast I heard Lee Dixon discussing how he was physically threatened by Paul Davis and Tony Adams before a North London derby, that if he didn't play his heart out then they would batter him. Now, I'm not condoning bullying or physical intimidation, but I am definitely calling for strong heads and leaders in this squad. We need someone out there on the pitch to motivate the lads when things are going wrong, and to get them playing well. I've said it before, but if we had someone with the same mentality of Roy Keane on that pitch do you think we would be squandering leads so willy nilly? No, we wouldn't because the players would be so scared to turn off, even for a moment in case they were to suffer the wrath of that man.
Can Simon Grayson be this man? I don't think so, all you need to do is look at his record at Leeds, and it becomes only too apparent that he's the type of manager accustomed to overseeing horrendous comebacks from the opposition. Can he bring in the right type of players to combat a lack of mental strength? Well he did with Leeds, after they were beaten by a Millwall side who were no doubt less talented than them in the play-offs, he went out and augmented his squad with characters that ultimately saw Leeds promoted automatically the following season. This year however I don't think we'll be celebrating a promotion, Grayson hasn't the time to install his own players into the squad, and even if he does bring in a few loan signings they'll only be temporary. The players he has, and will predominantly have until the end of the season are Lee Clarks, the ones who are all to adept at bottling matches and throwing away opportunities.
If we are to go up, as highly unlikely as it would seem at present time we're going to have to either dramatically and miraculously improve, or beat one of if not both of the Sheffield clubs on the way. Now if Grayson can get a few characters in a make his mark on the squad then I think we do stand a chance of promotion. But as it stands I think there are a few other clubs better placed than us to gain promotion, and with the crowded fixture list awaiting us, it doesn't give Grayson and his management team much time to change things.
We have to make something positive from this week, and we can look back on Saturday as bizarre as it seems and say we gained a point on Sheffield United, perhaps an invaluable point. Shame and anger are great motivators, two emotions the players should be feeling right now, and hopefully they can channel these emotions into two positive results this week. If they can't get over this week and respond positively for the rest of the season, then I suspect it will be the play-offs for us, and we all know what happens in the play-offs.
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