Huddersfield Town 2 Brentford 1: Powell hails Scannell’s form

Sean Scannell struck in the first half and then forced left-back Jake Bidwell into chesting home an own goal shortly after the break.

Former Leeds star Jon Douglas struck back late on but Town repelled late pressure to take three points.

Chris Powell made two changes to the Town side which lost at Bolton with Jon Hogg replacing Diego Poyet in midfield and Murray Wallace brought into central defence for thigh victim Joel Lynch.

Brentford were brimming with confidence after their winning run and Douglas should have headed them into an early lead before Alex Smithies did well to tip a deflected shot from Alan Judge over the bar.

Judge and Alex Pritchard were also off target with shots from outside the area but Town matched their threat and took the lead with a free-flowing move in the 18th minute.

Jack Robinson overlapped, Nahki Wells helped on his low cross and, although Grant Holt narrowly failed to connect, Sean Scannell raced in from the right to fire the ball home.

Tony Craig’s last-ditch tackle prevented Wells making it 2-0 and the Bermuda international also curled a free-kick narrowly over the bar before the break.

Town soon went 2-0 up after the break when left-back Jack Robinson drove in a cross and Bidwell chested the ball into his own net as Scannell raced in at the far post.

Douglas raced into Town’s area to poke home in the 70th minute and Brentford piled on late pressure but Smithies pulled off three brave saves to keep Town ahead.

Town boss Chris Powell hailed Sean Scannell’s “rich vein of form”.

“He has had a dead leg and didn’t train until Thursday so it was touch and go,” said Powell.

“He is in a real rich vein of form right now. He’s a flying machine!

“People said to me when I came here he doesn’t score goals and doesn’t make assists but he has proved what a good player he is. He can be a matchwinner at this level.”

When he came in as manager at the end of August Powell put a block on Scannell’s proposed deadline-day switch to Millwall and Powell added: “He is proving I was right to keep him here.”

Powell described the game as “exciting, open and end to end” and said: “I thought we played exceptionally well, there was a real intensity to our play.

“We were quite brave against a team that was going well and for 80 minutes it was a really good performance. In the last 10 minutes they put us under pressure.

“It was hairy-scary at times but that’s the Championship for you. At 2-0 we should have killed them off but they got a goal and then their tails were up. We need to build on this.”