I am getting fed up with seeing this scoreline and something needs to be done. We do not seem to have the same energy and willingness when we are home, and we play much better when we are away.
Earlier in the season, I made the trip down to West Yorkshire where we suffered from a 2-0 defeat. They were still below us in the league at that time, yet we still could not beat them. It was the same scenario in this game. Huddersfield came into the game sitting on 25 points and second to bottom of the League. We were seven places above them and nine points separated us. We should be beating them right? Well, you would have thought so. And, I do not understand how we can beat Birmingham, who are above us in the League, and draw against a team that has been struggling to get out of the relegation zone. We did well against Fulham last week, who are in the top half of the Premier League, we mauled Wigan at the DW Stadium and we have a much stronger squad. So, what went wrong?
First, Rosenior needs to start scouting for defenders. It is great that we have a threatening attack; however, our defence needs attending to. We have three League One players starting in our back four, when we are up against teams in a much harder league. Since Acun took over the club, he has made 17 new signings and only three of them play in defence. One gets played, one is always on the bench and the other does not even make the bench. Surely Rosenior knows this and it is time for him to look for a couple more strong defenders; especially centre backs.
Second, we play a very tedious style of football. All we do is pass the ball from the back and then slowly progress up the pitch. This wastes time and it allows the opposition to pressure us; this is where we lose the ball. Why can we not just make long passes over the top? It just seems that we dominate in possession, yet we fail to be making use of it. Today, we had 68% of possession; however, Huddersfield still had more shots on target than us. They, also, had half of our passes and made a goal out of it, yet we had twice the amount of passes as they did and only made one goal out of that. It just shows that we just mess around with the ball and want to win by getting the most passes rather than more goals. When we played Wigan, where we won 4-1, we completed 495 passes and had 52% of the possession. It seems that the fewer passes and less possession we have, the more goals we score. Surely it should be the other way around? I do not understand how we can manage to do this.
Finally, we do not have the composure to finish. I know that we put four past Wigan the other week; however, it seems that we are nervous to do that when we are at home. We had 14 shots, yet we only managed to get one goal, in the last minute! However, when we put four past Wigan we had five less shots than we did in this game. We are getting the chances, however, the finishing is poor. Watching this game, we had a few amazingly placed crosses into the box and not one of the players in black and amber could finish it off. We know we can score, it is just the confidence in the players that is lacking.
Our performance today was very different to what it has been like previously. It was the visitors who opened the scoring, in the 21st minute; a great corner was swung in, and after many failed attempts at clearing it, Michal Helik was there at the back post to stick it in. Again, more sloppiness from the back. They took full control of the game after this and it was very difficult for us to get out of our own half. And when we did, we could not do anything special. It was a painful 45 minutes and the only chants coming from my stand were ‘FORWARD!’ and ‘For f**k sake’. I have not heard those ones in a while.
In the second half, we seemed to be slowly getting back into it. And, our best chance of the game came in the 63rd minute; Estupinan’s spectacular strike was denied by the base of the post. Tufan also had a promising shot, which just grazed the outskirts of the post.
I do not know why, but we seem to play better when Tufan is subbed on; however, when he starts he makes no impact. It is a strange one to be honest. Also, when Tetteh was brought on he made a huge difference. In fact, I believe most of our shots came when he was subbed on. Rosenior is a genius at making the right changes at the right time.
When it got to the 90th minute, people started leaving the stadium and half of it emptied out. I bet they are regretting that, as we equalised in the 98th minute. The ball was played into the box, and it was not cleared away properly by the visitors. So guess who was there to scoop it into the back of the net? Oscar Estupinan. The man who has saved us many times. The player who has scored 12 for the club this season. He has now scored four in his last five games, and we desperately need him to stay.
So that was a shocking performance, despite dominating in most of the stats. And, we cannot be doing this if we are to play second in the table, Sheffield United, next week. I will be travelling to this one, and I am not that optimistic to be honest.
Also, something has just appeared to me; when we do not take the knee, we play better. However, when we do, we play very poorly. So, is it ligament damage in the leg from taking the knee that causes this? Who knows.