Frustrated Michael Duff hints at formation change as Huddersfield Town target League One revival
Michael Duff cut an angry figure after Huddersfield Town’s loss to Northampton Town
Huddersfield Town boss Michael Duff has conceded their recent defeats have shown that his side are “maybe not as good” as they had previously thought.
The Terriers have suffered losses to Bolton Wanderers, Birmingham City and Northampton Town over the past week, with Town dropping to fifth in the League One table and now sitting 11 points adrift of second-placed Wycombe Wanderers, albeit with a game in hand.
Prior to the three defeats, Town had been on a 16-match unbeaten run in the league that lasted almost four months of the campaign, but the Terriers are now tasked with getting back on track following a disappointing week.
On responding to Saturday’s 3-2 loss at the fifth-from-bottom Cobblers, Duff told HTTV: “I’ve kept it pretty short in there, they know my feelings about the performance.
“Going on and on, and kicking teapots and things, you say things you don’t mean, so we’ll get them in and I’ll evidence everything I said – it was two sentences ultimately – and then pick the bones out of it.
“The unbeaten run, with all the change that’s been going on at the football club, probably people get a little bit ahead of themselves, and we think ‘oh we’ve made a couple of signings, we’ll just cruise to three to four nil wins every week’, football doesn’t work like that. We’re integrating new things, and we’re maybe not as good as what we thought we were, today definitely showed that.
“We have to have a look at things. I’ll own it in terms of ‘did we pick the right team, did we pick the right formation?’ All those types of things we’ll look at.”
With Town eager to seal an immediate return to theDuf Championship, f has called on his side to handle the pressure that comes with a promotion push better. He said: “You play for a big football club, and expectancy comes with it, whether it’s being able to deliver a final ball, or the nickname is the Terriers, we were anything but that today, apart from the last 20 minutes. You’ve got to deal with the responsibility of representing the football club.”
Town found themselves three down at Sixfields after 51 minutes, and while Herbie Kane and Jonathan Hogg netted in the final 20 minutes, the visitors were unable to complete their comeback.
Duff was left frustrated with several aspects of his side’s display that left them with a mountain to climb, saying: “We got in behind them five, six, seven or eight times, and the final ball wasn’t good enough. That’s the disappointing thing.
“You get into good areas, we need better balls. We talked about in the week, but we got really good opportunities in behind them, and then give a really, really poor goal away.
“The throw-in setup’s wrong, people stood in the wrong positions. It’s a brilliant finish no doubt about that, a half volley with the outside of his boot, and the third goal’s a really good finish as well, but the second goal’s just a punt down the pitch, we have to deal with it better.
“Individual error is sometimes a difficult one, but that probably summed the game up, that they just stuck it down our throat and we didn’t deal with it well enough.”
