Huddersfield Town 1 Burnley 3: Town lacked courage of convictions, says David Wagner

Huddersfield Town head coach David Wagner said his side were not 'brave' enough and lost the game in the first half as Burnley surged on at the top of the championship.
By The Newsroom
Published 14th Mar 2016, 06:47 BST
Updated 14th Mar 2016, 08:01 BST
Huddersfield Towns Nahki Wells, left, and Burnleys Ben Mee challenge at the John Smiths Stadium (Picture: PA).Huddersfield Towns Nahki Wells, left, and Burnleys Ben Mee challenge at the John Smiths Stadium (Picture: PA).
Huddersfield Towns Nahki Wells, left, and Burnleys Ben Mee challenge at the John Smiths Stadium (Picture: PA).

The Clarets clinched a sixth straight win and extended their unbeaten league run to 14 matches.

Stephen Ward, Sam Vokes and Ben Mee clinched the victory, with Joe Lolley replying for Huddersfield as all four goals came in the opening 45 minutes.

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“Burnley are the best team in the league and if you are to beat the best team you have to be brave, and we weren’t,” said Wagner.

“At half-time, I said we had to accept the situation. I said we can lose this game, but we have to learn from the first half and impose our identity.

“We had good chances to score, but we have to accept this defeat. If you play our style of football, mistakes will happen, but we are still creating chances. We made mistakes for the corners and were punished.”

Wagner made four changes after a 3-1 victory over Reading on Tuesday, but insisted he had no regrets about rotating his players.

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“The starting 11 will never depend on the last game or the one three weeks ago. You focus on the current opponent not those in the past.

“We like to have fresh bodies so we can keep our speed and play our full-throttle football. We don’t change.”

Wagner’s counterpart Sean Dyche praised the strength and power of his Burnley team.

“I felt we had control of the game at the end of the first half and we saw it out really well,” he said. “In the second half Huddersfield played with more freedom, as you would expect from a side with nothing to lose, but we controlled it well.”

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Burnley took the lead in the 14th minute when Michael Keane headed down David Jones’s corner and Ward hooked in.

Vokes added the second in the 30th minute when George Boyd squared into the area and the striker claimed his sixth goal in seven matches and 13th goal of the season.

Lolley pulled one back in the 44th minute when he took a pass from Tommy Smith and fired home an angled drive, but in first-half stoppage time Mee scored with a diving header from another corner.

Huddersfield Town: Steer, Smith, Hudson, Cranie, Davidson (Husband 84), Huws, Whitehead, Scannell (Bunn 55), Matmour (Paterson 56), Lolley, Wells. Unused substitutes: Murphy, Dempsey, Lynch, Bojaj.

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Burnley: Heaton, Lowton, Keane, Mee, Ward, Boyd, Jones, Barton, Arfield (Kightly 75), Vokes, Gray (Hennings 85). Unused substitutes: Marney, Taylor, Robinson, Tarkowski, Darikwa.

Referee: S Duncan (Tyne & Wear).

Man of the match: Ben Mee.

Related topics:BurnleyHuddersfield TownSean Dyche