Newcastle United 2 Huddersfield Town 0: I am still positive, insists defiant Siewert

ANOTHER week and another defeat for Huddersfield Town.
Huddersfield Town's Tommy Smith (far right) is shown a red card.Huddersfield Town's Tommy Smith (far right) is shown a red card.
Huddersfield Town's Tommy Smith (far right) is shown a red card.

The Terriers slumped to their 13th loss in 14 outings on an afternoon when Jan Siewert’s men were forced to play with ten men for 70 minutes following captain Tommy Smith’s dismissal.

Salomon Rondon and Ayote Perez got the second half goals but, in truth, this could easily have been Town’s heaviest beating of the season.

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Not only did Newcastle hit the woodwork four times but Jonas Lossl produced save after save to keep the hosts at bay.

Smith saw red after a wild challenge on Almiron that saw referee Kevin Friend immediately besieged by home players before dismissing the Town captain.

Almiron was involved in most of the first half’s major moments, his pace proving hard to handle.

Newcastle’s record signing struck a post with an audacious chip when the two teams still had 11 men apiece. Rondon then did the same with the follow-up before later bringing a fine save from Jonas Lossl.

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The Town goalkeeper also twice denied Almiron a goal on his full debut, the first a fine reflex save and the second seeing Lossl get just enough on the ball as it went through his legs before Chris Lowe cleared.

Lossl saved perhaps his best save for two minutes before the interval, Ayoze Perez this time the home player left scratching his head after being denied by the Terriers goalkeeper.

Huddersfield’s resistance was finally broken 59 seconds into the second half. A sweeping ball from Florian Lejeune found DeAndre Yedlin.

His cross was then helped on by Perez and Isaac Hayden before Rondon spun and fired past Lossl.

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Newcastle doubled their advantage six minutes later, Perez firing in this time after Yedlin had been afforded the freedom of the Terriers penalty area to head Almiron’s looping cross towards his team-mate.

Lossl then tipped a Kenedy volley on to the crossbar, moments before Sean Longstaff also hit the crossbar with a fierce shot.

It proved a bruising afternoon for Huddersfield, who have now lost 13 of the last 14 league games and have not won since November 25.

Manager Jan Siewert said: “You know, we haven’t won since November and although my face doesn’t show it today because I am disappointed with the result, I am still positive.

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“If you had been in our dressing room after the game, we still want to fight for everything which is possible.

“We started quite well because we created chances and in the first 15 minutes, we were really in the game.

“But definitely to be honest, there were some situations that we should have solved better and additionally, the red card didn’t make it easy for us.”