Huddersfield Town's woeful start continues as they are thrashed 4-1 by Preston in Carabao Cup

Progression into the second round of the Carabao Cup against a Championship team in Preston North End also giving a few fringe players a run out was never going to be the spark that lifted the gloom around the John Smith’ Stadium.

Nor was a defeat going to turn the lights out on the season.

But the manner of the listless exit, the way they were carved open by Preston in the first half in particular was enough to draw boos from the majority of the 5,550 in attendance and does nothing to quell the growing belief that Huddersfield are in the process of taking a huge step backwards.

Barely three months have passed since they were a Wembley win against Nottingham Forest away from a return to the Premier League, but since then they have lost a head coach in Carlos Corberan, a driving influence in midfield in Lewis O’Brien and their first two games of the Championship season.

And now this, a much-changed team taken apart by a Preston side who themselves came into the game having failed to lift the imagination of their supporters with two goalless draws.

But it is their fans who head back over the Pennines with their spirits lifted. Goodness knows what a defeat of this nature does for a Huddersfield team rapidly running out of positives and a fanbase sensing a major regression.

There is some context, though. Danny Schofield – a manager having to learn on the job – was not afraid to use the game to change things up and give younger fringe players a chance.

Brodie Spencer at right-back and Connor Mahoney were making their first appearances for the club, Yuta Nakayama on the left of the back four and Etienne Camara in front of the defence were making their first starts.

But Spencer for one, an 18-year-old plucked out of the Cliftonville academy in the summer, endured a difficult baptism.

Preston’s attacking left-back Alvaro Fernandez gave him a torrid time, twice receiving a pass inside the defender to square the ball across the face of goal for the on-rushing Ali McCann to slot past Lee Nicholls.

Those carbon-copy second and third goals came in the 20th and 30th minutes, by which time Huddersfield – who had enough senior players in the team – were lucky not to be five down.

Troy Parrott got Preston’s first goal of the season after just five minutes, reacting quickest to slot home via the inside of the post after Nicholls could only parry Ryan Ledson’s fierce drive from the edge of the area. The tone had been set.

Parrott could have had a second soon after when he danced through unimpeded only to draw a smart save from Nicolls, before the first of Fernandez’s many raids down the left created a chance for Brad Potts, whose volley crashed against the cross bar.

Nakayama prevented it being four with some intelligent defending to deny Parrott racing through one-on-one.

Mercifully, Fernandez took a knock on the cusp of half-time and didn’t return for the second half. But even with that blessing, Huddersfield – a team who have scored more than two goals in a game only twice this calendar year – were never going to recover from three goals behind.

And it only took five minutes of the second half to get worse for the Terriers.

Ben Whiteman served notice that Preston were far from content to settle for what they had with a thundering drive that rattled the cross bar and dropped into Nicholls’s arms, before Potts scored North End’s fourth. Duane Holmes waited for a pass out of defence to find him instead of going to attack it and Preston pounced quickly, Potts beating Nicholls from 18 yards via a deflection off Town’s Will Boyce.

Schofield responded with a triple substitution; Sorba Thomas and Tino Anjorin among the reinforcements from the bench and it was the latter’s ball that released Jordan Rhodes for the veteran to slide the ball under Freddie Woodman in the Preston goal and give the home support something to cheer at last.

Thomas then forced Woodman to beat away his long-range shot, Town finally asking questions of the Preston defence going forward, but the horse had long since bolted.

Huddersfield Town: Nicholls; Spencer, Lees (Edmonds-Green 75), Boyle, Nakayama; Mahoney (Jackson 84), Russell (Rudoni 55), Camara, Koroma (Thomas 55); Rhodes, Holmes (Anjorin 55). Unused substitutes: Bilokapic, Turton, Ruffles, Grant.

Preston North End: Woodman; Storey, Bauer, Cunningham, Fernandez (Johnson 46); Whiteman, McCann (Leigh 87); Potts, Woodburn (Slater 84), Ledson (O’Neill 83); Parrott (Riis 60). Unused substitutes: Cornell, Hughes, Olusunde, Amaral..

Referee: R Joyce (Teesside).