Huddersfield Town vs QPR

Competition: EFL Championship Matchday 16

Date: 05/12/2020

Score: 2-0

Ground: John Smith Stadium

5 Conclusions from the Game

1. Town are looking very thin in defence.

The serious injury sustained by Christopher Schindler increases the pressure on the defence as Town now have Tommy Elphick, Richard Strearman, Christopher Schindler and Romoney Crichlow out with injury. This leaves Rarmani Edmonds-Green and Naby Sarr as the only senior first-team centre backs. If one of these picks up an injury or suspension, then Town could be in real trouble as there are still 7 games left until the transfer window opens.
I get the feeling that the injury that Schindler sustained will be season-ending and in turn, the end of his Huddersfield Town career. A true legend of Huddersfield Town and someone who gave his all every time he stepped out onto the pitch for the badge.

2. Town was nowhere near ruthless enough today.

After a brilliant first half of football from Town, they really did slacken off in the second half, there were definitely more goals for Town to have scored in this game and improve our goal difference. Josh Koroma and Harry Toffolo both scored good goals, but you could argue that Josh could have had a second in the first half when instead of shooting he decided to pass to Fraizer Campbell.
We secured three points, but I still think we could have won by a bigger margin. I struggle to see what Danny Ward adds to the side when he comes off the bench and today I would have rather seen Matty Daly as I think against Cardiff he was sacrificed at half time due to the whole team being poor. So I would have given him 30 minutes against a lacklustre QPR side and see what he could have done.

3. Substitutions.

I feel like I write about this every week, but yet again Carlos made his subs late and didn't even use all of them. Town are playing 9 games in December and players are going to get injured if they aren't rested. Hogg and Eiting don't have great injury records and I don't see why you would not take either off at 60 minutes when we were looking comfortable. This points towards Corberan either not trusting certain players or not wanting to make changes as he worries it could destabilise the team.

4. Town seem to be learning from their mistakes.

Having previously made silly mistakes playing out from the back and sliding in unnecessarily in the penalty area, it was good to see that Town (especially Naby Sarr) were kicking it out if needed so they didn't get caught in possession and moved the ball much quicker. Hopefully, Town are able to back up this performance with another performance of this quality on Tuesday against Sheffield Wednesday, because Town have shown performances of this nature before, but they have struggled to back them up in the next game.

5. Town are becoming too over-reliant on the left-hand side.

My only criticism of Town is that they are playing too much down the left-hand side and it could get to the point wherein some games, teams purposefully set up to counteract this and force us through the middle and right. I think now Pipa is back from injury, we should start to see Town playing down the right more, but quite like last season when Town passed to Karlan Grant and hoped he would score, Town needs to not let the same happen here.

Town Team:

Starting 11: Ben Hamer, Pipa (73' Juninho Bacuna), Christopher Schindler (79' Rarmani Edmonds-Green), Naby Sarr, Harry Toffolo, Jonathon Hogg, Lewis O'Brien, Carel Eiting, Fraizer Campbell (73' Danny Ward), Isaac Mbenza (87' Demeaco Duhaney), Josh Koroma
Subs: Ryan Schofield, Demeaco Duhaney, Jaden Brown, Adama Diakhaby, Rarmani Edmonds-Green, Matty Daly, Danny Ward, Alex Pritchard, Juninho Bacuna
Formation: 433