Huddersfield Town: We must liven up for Millers derby and cut out errors: Powell

CHRIS POWELL has ordered Huddersfield Town to pick themselves up for a ‘lively’ derby appointment with Rotherham United on Saturday after suffering their second comprehensive defeat in the capital in the space of four days.
Chris Powell.Chris Powell.
Chris Powell.

Inconsistent Town slumped to a 4-1 defeat at high-flying Brentford on Tuesday night, with Powell’s side paying the price for some porous defending, just as they did in Saturday’s 3-0 loss at the Huddersfield manager’s former club Charlton Athletic.

Powell felt Town, who cancelled out Chris Long’s fourth-minute opener when Harry Bunn struck his ninth goal of the season on 22 minutes, paid the price for a poor opening to each half.

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Town have now conceded sixty goals this term, only Blackpool (68) conceded more with Powell not happy with that area of deficiency.

Powell, who have won just once in their past six outings, said:“We’ve conceded 60 goals with 11 games to go. That should be the goals conceded for the whole season. We’re making too many basic errors and errors as individuals and as a team. It can’t continue.

“These have been two bad defeats on the road. Now we have to be brave and stick our chests out, because we have a very lively game coming up on Saturday. We must pick ourselves up after a tough evening.

“These players are good enough at this level, although they may not have shown it in the last two games. “At the moment, the table reflects our level, but we’re trying to be better in each game and better than last season. I want more.

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“No matter what we do and what formation we play, we’re not consistent enough and we concede too many goals. That’s very unlike teams of mine; we’ve had very few games where we’ve played poorly and managed a 0-0 draw.

“We look like we might score three and concede four. You can’t have that.”

On a tough night for Town, he added: “We started both halves really poorly and got punished. We had such a poor start in the first-half that we could have been three down, but Alex (Smithies) pulled off two terrific saves.

“We dug ourselves out of a hole and started to get a bit more confident on the ball, pushing forward a bit more and building. That resulted in a very good goal for Harry Bunn.

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“At half-time, we were in the game and we wanted to carry on in the same fashion, but we conceded again very early. With 35 minutes still to go, we were really up against it as we had to open up to get back in the game.

“The third goal took a cruel deflection. Alex was great and made some good saves, but we still conceded four. It could have been a lot more.”

Powell will assess Joel Lynch (groin) and Nahki Wells (shoulder) ahead of the weekend clash with the Millers.