Huddersfield Town 1 Bury 1: Town’s new faces fail to make immediate impact

Being held at home by Bury was certainly not how the 20-year-old – or, for that matter, anyone else at the Galpharm Stadium on the opening day – expected the pre-season favourites to kick-off the new season.

However, despite taking just a point off a team fresh out of League Two, Gobern insists no-one at the club should lose heart.

The summer signing from Southampton said: “We were favourites going into the game but didn’t really turn up. The thing is, though, we can’t get too down as there are still another 45 games to go.

“This was one game and it was disappointing because we know we can do better. But that’s what it was, one game.

“We have to keep our heads up and keep going. We want promotion and want to finish in that No 1 spot. It didn’t go as we hoped against Bury but we have a great squad.

“You only have to look at the players not in the 16 to realise that. Having such strength in depth is a big plus for us.

“Every player in the team knows that we have to perform well to keep hold of a shirt.

“If we don’t do that, we will be out. That will keep everyone on their toes, because we know the rest are breathing down our necks.”

Gobern’s confidence in the strength of the Terriers squad is well placed, as a glance at the calibre of the players who missed out on a place in the starting line-up versus the Shakers proves.

Of those who either started on the bench or were left kicking their heels in the stand, it is very easy to pick a starting XI that would be more than competitive in League One. It could, for instance, read: Colgan; Hunt, Cooper, McCombe, Ridehalgh; Cadamarteri, Gudjonsson, Johnson, Miller; Novak, Lee.

Such a deep reserve of talent is why Huddersfield are so strongly fancied to make it third time lucky this term and win automatic promotion after back-to-back defeats in the play-offs.

To do so, however, they will have to improve massively on the disjointed display that led to points being dropped against Bury.

Few players emerged with much credit from a largely listless 90 minutes that was played at a tempo more in keeping with a pre-season friendly than a competitive league fixture.

Just why Town should be so lacking in direction could have been down to the number of debutants with five of the summer arrivals (or six if you include Danny Ward, who spent the final few months of last season on loan at the Galpharm) getting time on the field.

Of those, Anton Robinson’s afternoon ended early courtesy of a kick to his hamstring – an injury that led to another new boy, Tommy Miller, playing the final hour or so after being brought off the bench.

Ward, Donal McDermott, Calum Woods and Gobern were the others to be handed their bow but, save for an early flurry of attacking intent from Ward and Gobern growing in stature after the break, none of them will have been overly proud of their efforts.

Instead, what few decent passages of play Huddersfield did manage were down to members of their old guard.

Lee Novak, for instance, was lively after coming off the bench eight minutes into the second half, while Gary Roberts did okay along with Antony Kay, who pulled off several crucial blocks and tackles.

That trio apart, however, there was precious little else of a positive nature to glean from an afternoon when the visitors were the better side.

Showing an admirably bold approach, the Shakers were determined not to sit back and try to contain Town. This almost paid off on 10 minutes when only a shockingly poor decision by referee Graham Scott denied Bury a penalty after Mark Cullen, who is on loan from Hull City, was clearly tripped by Peter Clarke as he shaped to shoot.

“I would have wanted it, that’s for sure,” was how Terriers chief Clark described the incident, underlining just why the visiting players were still furious with the officials as they left the field at half-time.

At that stage, the score was still goalless and it took until the 65th minute for the deadlock to be broken, courtesy of some neat work down the right by Novak and an excellent finish by Roberts.

It looked like the wideman, who Clark insists is “going nowhere” despite being in the final year of his contract and attracting interest from Sheffield Wednesday, had got Town out of jail only for Bury to stage a late rally and claim a deserved point.

First, David Worrall skipped round Ian Bennett before rolling a shot goalwards that captain Clarke did brilliantly to block on the line.

Then, with 14 minutes remaining, slack marking allowed Ryan Lowe to collect the ball in the six-yard area before turning smartly to smash the ball into the corner of the net and leave Clark to comment: “It was very, very disappointing. We were quite poor and I didn’t see that coming. We didn’t turn up, both individually and collectively.

“We also didn’t follow our game plan, either with the ball or without it, and there were a lot of players who didn’t do themselves justice.

“Their goal just about summed up our performance. It was throw, head on, turn and goal. We didn’t do the basics and that was disappointing.”