Cardiff 3 Huddersfield 2: Set-piece lapses sees Town fall to former boss Neil Warnock

ONE-TIME Huddersfield Town manager Neil Warnock said games like this keep him out of retirement.

Warnock arrived in Wales last month and has taken the Bluebirds out of the bottom three.

First-half strikes from Sean Morrison, Junior Hoilett and Rickie Lambert sent the 67-year-old manager home happy.

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Tommy Smith pulled a goal back for Huddersfield at 2-0, and Phil Billing’s wonder-strike made it a nervy ending for Cardiff but Town’s frailty at set-pieces was again their undoing as they slipped to fourth.

Warnock said: “You can’t replicate the feeling when you hear the final whistle and get a result like that.

“Everyone gave everything on the pitch – there were no shirkers. It was just a cracking Championship game. I would’ve taken a point before the game started.”

Huddersfield chief David Wagner bemoaned his team’s inability to defend free-kicks and corners.

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Two of Cardiff’s three goals came from set-pieces – an ongoing problem for Town, especially away from home where they have won just twice since September.

Wagner said: “The away form isn’t worrying. The form is good, we just need to sort out the set-pieces. We’ve scored two goals, but come away with nothing. We just need to keep on working on it and hope it improves. We have to blame ourselves for how easy we gave the goals away.

“We were aware about it, we worked on it, but defending set-pieces is always about one against one and we lost too many of them.”

Cardiff City: Amos, Peltier, Morrison, Bamba, Pilkington, Ralls, Gunnarsson, Whittingham, Bennett, Hoilett (Richardson 89), Lambert (Gounongbe 76). Unused substitutes: Noone, Connolly, Harris, Chamakh, Wilson.

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Huddersfield Town: Ward, Hefele, Stankovic, Schindler (Scannell 62), Smith, Hogg (Billing 62), Mooy, Lowe, Kachunga, Palmer, Wells. Unused substitutes: Whitehead, Hudson, Holmes-Dennis, Coleman, van La Parra.

Referee: J Adcock (Nottinghamshire).